SYSTEM DESIGN¶
A service that is its own ecosystem where food is served in the same waste it creates. It is a versatile methodoly as it can be addapted to other ingredients and techniques, this is just the one that was created during Fabricademy. The system ends either in the gut or enters in another circle of reusability as a compostable menage.
A COLLABORATION WITH SUCULENTA, a plant-based shop based in Bilbao¶
Suculenta is a vegan shop where they sell organic fruit and vegetables, beans and seeds in bulk; a wide range of homemade prepared food and a daily menu. They are practically new in Bilbao and the girls who run it are wonderful. When I enter in this kind of shops I am all over the place and I can’t contain my happiness, so I was almost their friend from the beginning.
One day, when their homemade meals to take-away was saving me from hunger, I explained them a little bit what I was doing for Fabricademy. They were very curious and interested about everything but way more in the tempeh, as there are no other brands than a industrial one in Spain; and asked me if there was any possibility of selling it in their shop. This made me realize that I would need a special certificate that allows me to interact with food. However I told them that I needed to check that but that I would bring them some of my tempeh so they could test how different it is from the bought one.
I gave them a tempeh made of chickpeas, cashews and a little bit of cacao nibs and told them how to cook it (find my recipes here). After a couple of days they wrote me telling me that they loved it and that they shared it with a couple who are working also with ferments and were really impressed and interested! So they invited me to their ferment meeting to taste different kind of foods.
That first proposition opened my mind for a colaboration: a circular gastronomic lab that can adapt to the workflow of a vegan shop, creating a symbiosis with it as it could reuse its waste for biomaterials.
A collaboration with a real shop would be a great chance of developing the system, tools and workflow. The partnership could be done in two different ways: as “The Mycelium House” as an external studio or inside the other business creating a total ecosystem in the same space.
After some weeks I decided that I wanted to make for my final presentation of the project a dinner. However I couldn't arrange a space where I could do it, so I thought of a workshop. I which better space than Suculenta to do it. One day I went and proposed to the girls a symbiotic workshop where I could show how to work with living organisms but also give a fantastic dinner with all the ferments explained with the same ingredients that Suculenta offers. So here I present: The Mycelium House own workshop by the hand of Suculenta.
The first workshop was done the 31 of march of 2022. It was amazing: the people, the environment, the food, the help, the opportunity...everything!!!!!
Before doing the workshop I planned how the workflow was going to be and I also made a sheet table in order to give them and decide the ticket price.
We were in total 13 people. As planned, the theory was given at the beggining making the public interact with was being done in order to do it a little bit more amusing. We moved from tempeh to coffee grounds kombucha and cashew cheese. Then we started cooking together all the food that was explained. The girls from Suculenta offered some of the cheeses they sell and the vegetables and fruit that were part of the dishes. I created a dossier with all the information and cooking methods, leaving some white space for the to write.
They were that content that a second edition was planned just when the first one finished!
A LAB ON ITS OWN THAT FEED OTHER BUSSINES¶
