THURSDAY, March 28, 2024
nationthailand

Making 'Sense' of organic

Making 'Sense' of organic

At Six Senses Yao Noi, guests enjoy only the very healthiest menus made from home-grown ingredients


It’s hard not to like chef Anthony Reynolds’ cooking concept at the Six Senses Yao Noi beyond Phuket. An Aussie, Reynolds has been cooking all his life, but surprisingly, it turns out the more he cooks, the fewer ingredients he uses and the slower his cooking becomes.
Reynolds prefers slow cooking based on organic and biodynamic practices. This approach, he says, is good not just for the body but for the environment as well. And he reckons that’s what many people today are looking for.
I met him over breakfast in one of the dining pavilions nestled among the mangroves and palms and overlooking the sea with grey islands looming on the horizon. I’d chosen a big bowl of multi-fruit muesli, fruit juice and Darjeeling tea with home-made French bread. The previous night, I’d enjoyed a French meal based on mushrooms and herbs grown in the resort’s own garden and locally sourced seafood. The beef had been cooked for 72 hours at 57 degrees Celsius and was medium-rare, juicy and tender.
You won’t find shark fins, Atlantic salmon, Chilean sea bass, forced-fed ducks and foie gras on the menu at the Six Senses. Reynolds has a long list of ingredients he won’t use for environmental, ethical and moral reasons. “We don’t serve lobster either. I’m sure lobster is an endangered species and overfished. We also don’t serve caviar and bird’s nests,” he says.
He feels certain that health-conscious guests who care about the environment share this view. “We offer only organic food with no additives,” he stresses.
In addition to growing his own vegetables, mushrooms and herbs in the resort’s gardens, Reynolds makes own muesli, fruit juice and drinking water, which is served in recyclable glass bottles.
“Zero waste for the bottled water,” he stresses.
Reynolds is most proud of his slow and organic cooking approach. Referring to his no-no list, Reynolds says it doesn’t make sense to serve forced fed ducks at his resort or anywhere else in the world for that matter.
“You know, this is not PR. These ducks were walking around eating corn 8,000 kilometres from here,” explains Reynolds, adding, “Then they were stuck on a truck, then on a plane, then on another truck, on a boat and another truck to get here. Imagine the carbon footprint of that duck. How much do we need to spend to get that duck here?”
Instead, Reynolds goes for eggs and free-range chickens raised by a family on Koh Yao Noi Island, where the resort is located.
For more supplies, Reynolds relies on fresh organic produce from a farm in Khao Lak, which practises both biodynamic and chemical-free farming. In Thailand, not many farms that claim to be organic actually are, he says.
“Organic means you must not have used pesticide or fertiliser for seven years before the stuff was grown. That’s why it’s expensive. But the problem is people want to make money fast, so they use fertilisers and chemicals. Many farms have not been ‘clean’ for seven years. People can write anything on the label. But who guarantees them?”
Using these organic products, Reynolds creates wellness cuisine based on his slow cooking. I tried some of the items on the resort’s healthy menu, including brown rice served on a pandanus leave and vegetarian massaman curry for lunch.
“Wellness is a cuisine based on low carbohydrate and low fat. At the end of the meal, you don’t feel heavy. The food tends not to stay in the stomach for a long time. It’s good for both ladies and men. People want to feel good after eating,” he says.
When we spoke, Reynolds had only two weeks left at the resort before his contract was due to end. But even if he decided not to stay on, the slow and organic cooking concept will remain unchanged. Six Senses is one of the few places where you can dine in style and leave without a guilty conscience.

 

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