Some of the most appetising dishes can come from food we find at our feet, says Ben Reade of Edinburgh Food Studio. They can be garden weeds and seaweeds, or they can be fermented foods with simple ingredients transformed by wild microorganisms.
His career in taking forward new ideas in food took him to the Nordic Food Lab established by the founders of Copenhagen’s world-renowned Noma restaurant, and to places such as Korea, Vietnam and Japan where food fermentation is a particularly important aspect of life. His interest in food started early.
“I grew up kicking limpets off rocks to eat them, collecting elderflowers for champagne and working alongside my mother in the allotment growing our own vegetables. My whole identity was tied up with these things, but it took a much more academic jump when I went to the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Italy.”