self-designed workshop - Educating about food waste

Mongolian general Chinggis Khan and his troops utilized a traditional food called borts to gallop across Asia without depending on elaborate supply chains. Borts is basically concentrated beef equal to the protein of an entire cow condensed and ground down to the size of a human fist. This remarkable method of food preservation, without refrigeration, produced a meal equivalent to several steaks when the protein was shaved into hot water to make soup.

The Turkish horsemen of Central Asia had their own solution. According to the Turkish Cultural Foundation, they would preserve meat by placing it in pockets on their saddles to be compressed by their legs as they rode. This meat was a direct ancestor of pastirma, a term which means 'being pressed' in Turkish, and is also believed to be the origin of the Italian pastrami.

Further in the frozen north, the Inuit from Greenland dine on a dish called Kiviak-a traditional wintertime food made from Auks, a small bird that bears a superficial resemblance to a penguin. Hundreds of whole birds are wrapped in a seal skin, which then has the air removed before being sewn up. The skin is placed in the permafrost under a stone to help keep the air out. The birds then ferment for around seven months before they are dug up and eaten, often at celebrations.

In many countries of South America, a freeze-dried potato delicacy known as chuño, which pre-dates the Inca Empire, is widely eaten. The potatoes are alternately exposed to the freezing night air and hot daytime sun for five days, being trampled to squeeze out all moisture. Chuño can last for months or years.

In Nigeria and several other western African countries, a dry granular foodstuff called garri is produced from cassava tubers that are peeled, washed and grated. The resultant mash is placed in a porous bag and allowed to ferment as weights press out the water. Finally it is sieved and roasted for long-term storage.