Trash Vinegar
Tips & Tricks
Gabrielle Hamilton first introduced me to the idea of trash eating in her confounding but somehow adorable PRUNE cookbook. Towards the end she has an entire section of trash meals that are meant to inspire and instruct her staff (the cookbook is literally Xeroxed copies of her kitchen instructions and includes large format recipes) to waste not want not.
Over the years, I’ve seen a clever restaurant or two host trash dinners where fancy people pay $30 for a homemade bowl of pasta with “carrot top” pesto. I like the concept very much as it is all about money-saving hacks over here, I like the idea of it being an expensive trend less so.
Summer is a great time to start some trash vinegar in your home as we are constantly lobbing the heads off produce. Summer grilling and salads always need a hit of acid at the end to brighten everything up and a fruit or vegetable vinegar is a great way to do it.
I currently have strawberry top vinegar; watermelon rind vinegar; and pineapple core vinegar on my speed rack. The concept is simple: take your trash and marinate it in a mild vinegar like apple cider vinegar which is not expensive and carries flavors well. Strain trash from vinegar and et voila, you are ready to trash it up.
There aren’t really hard and fast rules for how much trash and how much vinegar to combine, but just make sure you macerate it for a couple of weeks and dispense of what you haven’t used by the time Fall rolls around.
Inspiration abounds as you can make salad dressings, drizzle on grilled asparagus, spoon on warm pork chops, and slosh onto a carrot top pesto to create wondrous cool pasta dishes like this:
