Waste Hater: Nick Balla Talks about the Culture Shock of Restaurant Industry Food Waste

As we approach this family-centered holiday, we’re focusing on a Waste Hater whose culinary tastes and deep commitment to using every last bit of food were first and foremost shaped by family. Chef Nick Balla wasn’t even introduced to the concept of food waste until his first job in the restaurant industry. Since then he’s spent his career trying to work waste out of restaurant culture and practices. We talked to him about a childhood spent in Michigan, New York City, and Hungary, and how that range gave him not only an early taste for acidity and funk, but also an understanding that we should always use every last bit of the food we grow. Both of these characteristics have remained front and center throughout his professional career. Right now he’s working on reopening his new processing kitchen, to serve as a holistic processing kitchen. 

I read that you had a pretty diverse geographical upbringing. How did that influence your relationship to food and cooking? 
My upbringing and my family is definitely a big part of the way I cook and of my palate. Growing up in Michigan, my mom and dad both had big families; both of their families had gardens and treated every bit of food as important to feed their large families. So from that I grew up with this economical attitude and a perspective on food which really came from growing up with baby boomer parents who had large families. 

My dad moved to New York when I was a kid, and when I would go visit him he would take me around to all the amazing delis the city has to offer, giving me a real taste for the flavors of Kosher delis - from brined fermented pickles to charcuterie and funky cheeses - these visits opened me up to things I hadn’t experienced much of back in Michigan. This definitely made me curious in my tastes and my desire to try new things at a young age. In Michigan, my mom did offer me flavors beyond those of most of my friends’ households as well; she was a hippie so we had miso and nori and other atypical things for that region hanging out in the cupboard. Both of my parents definitely ingrained in me an adventurous instinct. 

After New York my dad moved to Central Europe as a fulbright professor. What really changed everything was when I went to live with him in Hungary in the early 90s. As a country just figuring out its footing after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Hungary offered me new foods as well as a different way of coming together at the table. The lingering influences of communism meant that most of the meals we enjoyed were these amazing home cooked meals that came together through the combined efforts of friends and neighbors. We ate a lot of muddy fish, carp, and fish stews, all of which were flavors and concepts totally outside the wheelhouse of my childhood. Instead of getting out of school and munching on doritos at the houses of friends like I had back in Michigan, I would go buy a loaf of bread from the neighborhood bakery, along with condiments and smoked fish. 

Did you encounter different cultures in the way food waste was treated in these different places?
My culinary ethic is pragmatism. The idea of wasting anything that you grow or buy has never been a part of my life; growing up in Michigan, the main point of my mom’s garden was to be able to feed a lot of people with efficiency. You don’t trim off the edges of something you’ve grown and then throw the rest away. Living in Central Europe, I also experienced and absorbed the peasant culinary culture. Honestly, the idea of wasting any part of food was only introduced to me once I went into restaurants. Since I first encountered it the idea of waste has always been ridiculous to me. 

Was there a sort of culture shock to see the scale of waste that happens at restaurants? 
Definitely, and even more so once I moved towards fine dining. There was always a lot of unnecessary waste because of bad management practices and food safety concerns that aren’t even necessarily relevant. It was a big shock. 

Did you implement new practices in the spaces you were in?
When I was a line cook or a sous chef, I definitely did. I would preserve and ferment any and all scraps; I got a dehydrator. I tried out dozens of different techniques. I would volunteer to make staff meal and use up everything that everyone else was planning to throw away. I brought up discussions around creative outlets for things not usually used, trying to incorporate them into the menu. The chefs I worked with were always pretty receptive to the ideas I brought to the table. 

From everything I’ve read or heard about you, it seems dips are your specialty. When did you first get into making dips and how many do you have in your repertoire? 
I’m not a big fan of favorites but one of my top-five favorite meals to eat would be a big Mezze platter of dips and spreads, playing off of that Mediterranean and North-African influence. I love eating that stuff. Those types of items are really good products to develop when trying to process foods efficiently, as well as for storage since they have a long shelf life. If I break down lettuce and make spicy lettuce dip inspired by Indian saag instead of trying to make 1000 salads and sell them before the lettuce goes bad I’m going to extend the longevity of that lettuce. 

It seems at your processing kitchen, the goal is to source both from farmers markets as well as companies specifically dedicated to selling ugly produce; do you have a preference? 
I don’t have a preference really. In my Bar Tartine years, we focused primarily on farmers markets and building relationships with people to whom we could say, hey whatever you can’t sell because it’s ugly, we’ll take it. And then we would get 1000s of pounds of food that they weren’t able to sell elsewhere. Every resource is important, and the San Francisco produce market has a lot of resources and a lot of avenues I can go down. There’s also just random chef friends who will message me and say they have extras from their restaurant gardens. Who knows who might text me today? 

The opportunity of our new processing kitchen business is a space that can handle anything. You never know what is going to be extra. Being able to develop products that might fluctuate based  on what’s available, we’re treating that as an opportunity rather than a hindrance, the way our food system ordinarily does. We don’t rely too heavily on following an exact recipe, which allows us to be flexible and take in whatever comes our way.