How 5 Chefs Created Zero-Waste Dishes

Such are the realities of running a restaurant kitchen that food will be wasted. Of the nearly 4 million tons of food wasted in this city each year, approximately 20 percent comes from restaurants. To bring awareness to the issue, a dozen restaurants are this week participating in an initiative called Make Food Not Waste Restaurant Week, vowing to go zero-waste for the week and running special dishes that are designed to showcase novel ways to reuse ingredients. Below are five such dishes — grits made of corn husks, squash-juice sorbet, fish-head empanadas among them — with explanations and insights from the participating chefs.