Silo: The Zero Waste Blueprint

by Douglas McMaster

“A seriously eye opening, inspiring and thought-provoking book!” - Nathan Outlaw

“This is not a cook book but a true source of knowledge and inspiration.” - Zero Waste Europe

“I’ve always said that it’s in a chef’s DNA to utilize what would otherwise be thrown away.  We are hardwired to take the uncoveted and make it delicious. But Doug McMaster is on another level entirely—he is doing some of the most thorough and thoughtful work on food waste today. This book gives you more than a glimpse into his mind. It provides a much needed roadmap for a future of limited resources and growing demands.” - Dan Barber, Chef/Co-owner of Blue Hill and Blue Hill at Stone Barns

"Silo, in East London, is Britain’s first zero-waste restaurant, and this fascinating book sets out the vision and the methods behind what it does. Judges described it as ‘an unprecedented, inspiring, stand-alone book’, taking readers on ‘a fascinating journey to achieve zero waste.’ It’s ‘trailblazing, exciting, relentless and uncompromising’ and made all the more valuable because ‘the author is also not afraid to include his failures too.’ In the end, said the jurors, ‘the book leaves you in no question about his revolutionary approach to cooking as his thoughts are conveyed with true conviction and diplomacy.’  - Food Book Award 2020 finalist, The Guild of Food Writers


Silo maps out an extraordinary new plan from radical young chef Douglas McMaster, founder of SILO the first zero food-waste restaurant—a food system for the future. 

He’s a man on a mission—dedicated to weaning us from our entrenched and over-processed food habits, encouraging us to go for the purest, most natural and efficient way to cook and eat, committed to de-industrializing our food system so that we eat fresh, waste less and make the most of what nature gives us. 

"Closed-loop systems,” "radical suppliers,” "off-grid ingredients,” "waste-free prep” and “clean farming” are just some of the words you will find in this polemic on the future of food as we know it. These are just some of the raw ingredients deftly chopped and mixed into an irresistible and intoxicating fusion. Part inspiration, part practical kitchen know-how, part philosophy—just add anarchic flavours and a dash of pure hope for a beautifully crafted book destined to be a refreshingly radical addition to your kitchen library. 

Genres: Cookbooks, Sustainability, Food, Environment, Nonfiction, Cooking, Food and Drink

176 pages, Hardcover

First published August 27, 2019

Reviews

[Annie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Originally published on my blog: Nonstop Reader.

Silo: The Zero Waste Blueprint is ostensibly a part philosophy and part DIY book by Douglas McMaster. Due out 27th Aug 2019 from Quarto on their Leaping Hare imprint, it's 176 pages and will be available in ebook and hardcover formats. The ebook version is available now.

This is a difficult book to review. On the one hand, the idea of zero waste and putting a stop to our out of control consumerism is admirable, necessary, and absolutely vital. On the other hand, there's something weirdly dichotomous about a professional restaurateur (however well meaning) whose products the public pays for, using the platform to condemn consumerism.

The subtitle is 'A Food System for the Future' which led me to expect some sort of blueprint for making steps toward implementing measures for reducing or eliminating waste in our daily lives. The book seems to mostly be a memoir of the difficulties of opening Silo, the restaurant, and adhering to his original vision of a zero waste establishment. There's a fair bit of reminiscing about his educational and training path as a chef, his encounters with other chefs and the cooking competitions in which he took part (and won or lost spectacularly). The first part of the book is fairly self indulgent, rambling, egotistical, and full of sentence fragments. It's quite literally difficult to read. In addition, each of the first sections are accompanied by high contrast sidebars with koans such as LIMITATION BREEDS CREATIVITY, FOOD IS PRECIOUS, and PROGRESS IS MESSY.

The second part of the book (roughly 19% of the content) contains a rambling discussion of distribution webs and gigantic waste in the forms of fossil fuel use, energy, packaging, time, etc. There are numerous diagrams showing different methods of transport and delivery.

The third part includes recipes for buying in bulk and cleaning supplies minimizing packaging and using reusable compostable sponges, cloths, etc. This section also contains a year's worth of recipes in menu form which utilize local seasonal ingredients. Some of the recipes are really odd (potato skin ice cream), most all of them are 'way out there'. Quite probably adventuresome foodies will find something to titillate (Hokkaido pumpkin, forced rhubarb & British sumac?).

The fourth part of the book draws together many of the ideas in the earlier sections. There are no definite hard and fast conclusions, however there is a lot of food for thought. There are no quick fixes for healing the planet, or sustainability, or any overarching plans to get started on. This section of the book also includes intriguing, slightly surreal, visual art.

It's unclear from the publishing info available online, but the eARC I received has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references. I hope the ebook release version does also. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately. Presumably that feature will carry through to the final release version.

I did not winnow out a lot of useful information from this book. There is a huge amount of enthusiasm and burning fervor here and especially foodies who would know where to source sea beets and pineapple weed locally and in season will doubtless find usable recipes and philosophy. This would make a good read for people who really enjoy restaurateur and food culture biographies.

Two stars for me, three+ for serious foodies.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

[Patch405 (Shannon Barghols) · Rating 1 out of 5]

I absolutely hate to give a bad book review, but this book was just not for me. I’m a novice gardener. I’m not a vegetarian, but I do love vegetables. I don’t always buy organic, but I am a firm proponent of the ‘buy local’ and ‘farm to table’ movements. I don’t (hopefully) spend a lot of time preaching about what other people should do. I take responsibility for my actions, and I try to do what I can to maintain and enhance the little slice of the world in which I live.

I was attracted to the book based on the ‘zero waste’ concept. And while it is definitely a blueprint for going all-in on this movement, it is overwhelming and not easy to replicate. There is a whole team in place making Silo work. There’s little advice regarding small steps one can take to nudge towards zero waste – nor are there any kudos for trying to take small steps. There is a lot of self-justification for why certain things are allowed – such as the use of meat and dairy. I don’t have a problem with meat and dairy (I love meat and dairy!) … I just have a problem with people trying to justify why it’s okay for them to have those components as part of their overall food plan. All the ‘rationalizing’ sections are off-putting. The recipe/food section tries to provide too many options with not enough detail. Again, for me – I would approach this with baby steps, focusing on foods that people might already have available.

If this book had been written as a memoir or an overview of Silo, the approach to the book and the reception by the reader would have been different. I could have spent time appreciating their efforts to create this zero waste world. In the ‘blueprint’ format, the book reads as a ‘how-to’ guide that has an air of superiority. This team is not the only one to strive for zero waste. One only needs to look towards poor populations or Native Americans to find people who use every part of the plant and animal, and do so without the help of many modern materials. Necessity and heritage cultivate environments of zero waste.

The one exciting point that I’m taking away from this book is the knowledge of Fairtransport – a small fleet of traditional sailing ships that includes the world’s only engineless sailing cargo ship. Fairtransport focuses on transporting organic or traditionally crafted products while raising awareness regarding the pollution created by the modern shipping industry. This intrigues me, and I hope to explore it more as I blog at www.Patch405.com.

I received an advance digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. The thoughts and opinions express here are my own.

[Nicole Strand · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed all the tips and tricks provided for zero waste. I enjoyed reading about the tips and tricks to run a restaurant zero waste as well. This book was unfortunately more biography than zero waste tips which I was hoping for. While it had some valuable information to it, most of it is too difficult to incorporate.

[Merijn Koops · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting book, a blue print to a Zero Waste kichen written by Douglas McMaster, the chef of the world's first Zero Waste restaurant. It is something between a cookbook and a philosophy book sprinkled with autobiographical elements. Some cool bits:

"Human nature is an anomaly. The rise of humans could be viewed in very different ways - transcending into gods or perhaps a virus upon earth. Waste is something we created, it's a symptom of our flawed system. However, nature is a perfect system - in nature there is no waste."

"Gastronomy is plagues with perfection. These delusions result in mountains of waste. The term 'primary ingredients' denominates ingredients as secondary or by-products, which suggest that product is less then perfect - and so the waste mounts."

"All life is just a mass of cells, postive and negative energy, crashing against each other. The meaning we derive from the world is just our own kind of illusion, it's just a story. It doesn't matter, nothing we do mattes, only when we decide it matters."

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Part cookbook, part manifesto, part autobiography - this book was interesting but also a bit difficult to get my head around. McMaster's story feels like a study in "flying by the seat of your pants," and he tells it with a warts-and-all honesty that is at once refreshing and cringe-inducing. The zero waste parts were the reason I chose this book, and while there were some interesting tidbits about Silo's own zero waste methods, I would've liked more detail (where do they get some of their bulk ingredients and equipment? Where did they find the best instructions for milling flour or what plants are safe to forage? Any statistics or scientific study information?). The recipes, while they make beautiful photos, are not anything I would ever make - here where I live we don't have many of these ingredients, the flavor profiles are not appealing to me, and they seem very complicated to a home cook. But still, good food for thought.

[Jeroen Kerssies · Rating 2 out of 5]

Written with a great cause. However, it reads like a pamflet written to and against a very small group of British chefs. It doesn't touch upon any solutions for smaller scale cooking like your average pub or household. More so, the assumptions made on the benefits of buying in bulk are fastly oversold, it doesn't state anything on how to properly manage the quality of your produce when doing so. The recipes - though easily understandable to the experienced chef - are filled with energy intensive cooking, requiring a lot of material and synthetic ingredients. Back to the drawing board...

[Kirsten Lost 2022 · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very interesting book wrapped up in a lot of preachiness. When he started talking about the challenges of the glass wine bottles from France, and how they didn't want to recycle so instead they just turn it back into sand at lower temperatures than traditional recycling... how? Have they discovered a brand new way with benefits over the usual way glass is recycled? We will never know!

I did like the year-round recipes using fresh, local ingredients. Good stuff there.

[Tosha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Odd little book, not quite a memoir, not quite a recipe book, but fascinating all the same.

I thought this was going to be a book about how Silos (like Fallout silos) might hypothetically manage food in a fantasy apocalyptic world, but it was actually realistic modern solutions by someone actually doing it as a restaurant. I was pleasantly surprised.

Excellent addition to a prepper/homestead book collection.

[Swindia Karina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written in a sometimes stern tone, the author clearly points out society's fault for the state of our planet. This book shares the truth about human waste, and how efficiently we can find new ways to replace our wasteful outdated and unnecessary ways. Inspiring along with some creative seasonal recipes.

[gearoid coyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Belief

I thought this book was going to be preaching zero waste philosophy, it did but in a good way. I feel the pain of what the emotions at the start of this venture i also read pure passion. Complete eye opener from someone that knows and believes in what they are doing.

[Katha · Rating 5 out of 5]

I‘d say it’s one of the most concise and creative cookbooks for people with relative knowledge about cooking and interest in seasonal and sustainable techniques. It’s very approachable and comes in a great size.

[Molly Todd · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easy to read, makes you think about your behaviour.

[Peta · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this very interesting, I think because of my personal interest in zero waste, food production and hospitality.

[Ted Manahan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The philosophy and some operational information about a zero waste restaurant in London.

[Isaac Wade · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty brief (by design). Some interesting stuff