Offsetting culinary karma

Offsetting culinary karma

SOCIAL & LIFESTYLE

From being chef-proprietor of the Jolly Abbot, Cambridgeshire, the UK, to personal chef to Mick Jagger, to general manager at the Aleenta Hua Hin Resort & Spa in Pran Buri, James Noble's culinary career is vast. Now, the founder of The Boutique Farmers can be found at his organic farm in Hua Hin, sowing, growing and harvesting crops that are highly sought after by some of the finest kitchens in Thailand.

Photo courtesy of James Noble

What is Boutique Farmers and why the need to set it up?

Boutique Farmers was set up purely for selfish reasons. I set it up because I have damaged the environment and destroyed the natural order of things in my 20+-year career. I am where these chefs are today and not considering what's in season and where things are coming from and what's the provenance of the food. If I wanted a product I could have it, that's the environment I grew up in, that's the environment I worked in. It is so wrong when you think about it, so you can decide to do something about it or not.

We decided to open Boutique Farmers, which is about growing to order. Chefs think 90 days in advance about their menus and come to us with a list of produce and ask if we can grow it, when will it be ready and how much it is. When you can grow produce, which costs less than being imported and the quality is better because it hasn't travelled and it's as fresh as the day you picked it, it's a win-win situation. The battle is getting chefs to think three months in advance.

The Boutique Farmers.

What is reverse farming?

When I was with Aleenta Resort, I practised the farm-to-table concept and soon realised that there is a growing need for organically grown produce. I also realised that were people who were pro-Thai and wanted Thailand-grown produce rather than use imported. So there are people who want products that are not indigenous to Thailand grown in Thailand. This is reverse farming. We now have a seed bank and if someone wants black heirloom tomatoes, we can grow those. These will be grown from seeds that are from Thailand and have no European connection at all. They are from a Thai tomato. Of course, if you go back seven years, we imported the first seeds for black heirloom tomatoes, but now it has been diluted so much that it is a pure Thai black heirloom tomato.

If you want a fig tree, you can come and look and test our mother tree and get a cutting from it. In three months time, you will have a fig tree from the cutting of your choice ready to go into the ground. This makes the produce 100% indigenous to Thailand.

Photos: The Boutique Farmers

Why the shift from chef to part-time farmer?

 

I wish I had shifted but I keep getting drawn back to it. But you get a bit of an itch and sometimes you need to scratch it. We scratched it and opened a restaurant. I was going crazy talking to flowers on the farm and needed to have some interaction with genuine, real people. The restaurant is called Home by Boutique Farmers, which was set up seven years ago, and is open Friday to Sunday. On Fridays and Saturdays we serve dinner and on Sundays we do a brunch. I am still connected but just don't have to be on my feet seven days a week.

I wanted to be very much involved in the industry that has been so good to me. I didn't want to lose this; I wanted to be part of it in a constructive way. I wanted to show alternatives to chefs that are coming into the industry, instead of saying: 'strawberries are in season in Peru, let's have them'. Why not think about something under your nose?

You're a big advocate of the zero food mile. Is this really sustainable?

Our industry is consumer driven. You need to educate the consumer. You should not be eating out of season. If you don't have it, then you don't need it. It is only because people are used to it that they want it. You need to change the process of supply and demand. If you come up with something special with mangoes that are in season, they won't be asking for strawberries. When strawberries are in season in Chiang Mai, then they should be on menus everywhere. That is seasonal. The consumer has more knowledge now and has more money, so their demand for products from around the world is higher.

If you educate them from the source, at a junior level, then they can be zero carbon. When I say zero carbon, I mean country carbon. I wouldn't consider Petchaburi to Bangkok as carbon I would consider that zero carbon. The golf courses in and around Bangkok have lakes in them that don't contribute to the zero carbon theory. They could be breeding tilapia.

So, although Bangkok cannot be zero carbon, unless you dig up Lumpini Park, there are things that people can do to help it. However, if things are coming down from Chiang Mai, make sure they come down on the same truck, ie car pooling and product pooling.

Do you still advocate sustainable luxury?

I think everyone's understanding of luxury is different. There are a few fantastic artisans in Bangkok doing luxury products that are Thai-based, like clothing design, using silk. We have our own silk farm, where my mother-in-law makes sarongs on a loom, dyed with natural colours, and it takes her three months to finish one. That is considered artisanal and hence, is a luxury product. When you cut down to the core product it's as good in quality as branded products. Luxury, artisanally, can be done.

What's next for you and Boutique Farmers?

We are doing a new project in Koh Samui, which is the most unsustainable place in Thailand. It has a very difficult climate and environment. But we were approached by a privately-owned group of five hotels to make it sustainable. We will do terrace farming on the side of the mountain going down to one of the hotels, which is Baan Talay Villas. The other four are beach hotels, which will all feed off a central farm. There will also be a hospitality school, where students can learn from product-to-end results -- where they learn about farming and where food comes from, to housekeeping using natural products.

We are excited to take a proven product and put it somewhere else. This isn't a sales and marketing ploy, this is a lifestyle. If you continue on your journey, you cannot help be enveloped by your passion. 

Visit http://theboutiquefarmers.com.

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