Will’s World: Banquet of the vanities at environment event
© Lee Boswell Photography Have you heard of the Earthshot Prize? No, I hadn’t either until a few weeks back.
It was founded in 2020 by Prince William and David Attenborough to celebrate innovative solutions to the planet’s greatest environmental challenges and is reportedly “the most prestigious environment prize in history”.
This year’s star-studded event recently took place in Rio (of course it did – you never hear of these things happening in Blackpool or Bognor Regis, do you?), where each of the five doubtless worthy winners were awarded £1m to scale up their projects to repair the climate. And the very best of luck to them all.
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Royal approval
In attendance was the prince himself, football legends, F1 drivers, pop stars, and, of course, numerous politicians and heads of state from round the globe.
I’m not certain how any of these paragons of environmental virtue and not-at-all-hypocrites got to Brazil.
I assume it was by a fleet of sustainably sourced wooden sailing ships powered by fairy dust and unicorns, rather than by fossil fuel-guzzling private jets.
Obviously, it would be poor form to mention in such august company the fact that the wealthiest 1% of people produce more carbon emissions than the poorest 50% combined.
No one likes to hear an inconvenient truth over their vintage champagne and vegan canapés, do they.
I’m not even joking about the vegan canapés.
The only food on offer at the star-studded event was from an all-vegan menu, “as a reflection of Earthshot’s commitment to sustainability and the planet”.
I could ask, at this point, what planet are these people on.
But nothing compares to the response from acclaimed Amazonian chef and restaurateur Saulo Jennings, who’d initially been asked to curate the banquet at the event.
According to The New York Times, Jennings was outraged by the request, gloriously stating that: “It was like asking Iron Maiden to play jazz.”
“It was a lack of respect for local cuisine, and for our tradition,” he went on.
“I have nothing against vegans or British people, but I don’t want to abandon my culinary mission.”
Needless to say, our hero didn’t end up getting the contract.
Menu madness
I’m sure the prince himself didn’t sit down with the venue’s catering manager to design the menu.
After all, the royals have had rather more pressing and delicate matters to deal with lately.
Nevertheless, it seems a very ill-judged and outdated decision from the organisers to effectively equate the Western fad diet that is veganism with global sustainability, and it must have come from someone high up.
It seems particularly disrespectful to the people of a meat-loving place like Brazil.
I’m sure that proud farmers and ranchers there will have taken umbrage with the decision.
As well as lamented the lost opportunity to showcase the incredibly wide and diverse range of products available in their country on the world stage.
It’s also disappointing to say the least for a man with the title Prince of Wales to endorse this overly simplistic way of thinking about food, given how much our rural communities and culture here depend on livestock farming – not to mention the many tenants of the 185,000-acre Crown Estate.
Let’s hope they see sense next year. If they want to make amends and are looking for a venue, I can highly recommend an up-and-coming city called Wrexham.
We don’t quite have the weather of Rio, but we do have some incredible produce that can be sourced from a wide range of local farmers, growers, butchers and brewers.
How’s that for environmental sustainability?