Chef Ada Parellada Demonstrates Waste Reduction Through Bechamel Sauce Versatility

Chef Ada Parellada, a significant figure in Barcelona’s culinary landscape, continues to promote educational efforts focused on reducing food waste within the gastronomic industry. Parellada, who has managed the Semproniana restaurant for 28 years since its opening in 1993 when she was 25, bases her philosophy on conscious cooking for sustainability. This approach is informed by her family’s history running the Fonda Europa, an establishment operating since 1771.

Parellada’s methodology centers on maximizing ingredient utility by transforming foundational preparations into diverse culinary outputs, using the traditional bechamel sauce as a prime example. This practice supports the broader industry goal of mitigating the estimated 1.3 billion tonnes of food wasted globally each year. She details how the basic bechamel foundation can be adapted into three separate, complex sauces: one incorporating cheese and egg, another infused with mushroom and boletus, and a third featuring piquillo pepper.

These specific transformations exemplify waste-minimizing cooking, which encourages the reuse of ingredient components that might otherwise be discarded—a practice increasingly adopted by professional kitchens to improve both sustainability and profitability. This focus on versatility within a single base ingredient directly addresses ingredient underutilization, a key driver of kitchen waste. By demonstrating how one preparation can yield multiple dishes, Parellada advocates for creative utilization of surplus or foundational components, mirroring zero-waste principles where vegetable scraps become stock bases.

The chef’s commitment extends to public outreach; since 2019, she has hosted the television program "What shall I make for dinner today?", which instructs viewers on preparing balanced meals using existing refrigerator contents. Her advocacy is situated within a larger movement in Catalonia, where nearly 174,000 tons of edible food are discarded annually in households, highlighting the need for systemic changes in consumption habits. Parellada’s contributions to catering were recognized in 2016 with the award of the Cross of Sant Jordi.

Parellada often summarizes her philosophy using the metaphor of a four-legged table: buying, cooking, preserving, and consuming, where a failure in any area compromises the entire system. The transformation of bechamel into three distinct sauces serves as a tangible lesson in this holistic framework, converting everyday components into varied, high-value dishes while addressing the economic and environmental costs associated with food disposal.