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Q&A: Daniel Bravo, the handsome chef, activist and environmentalist aboard the Rainbow Warrior Ship
The Rainbow Warrior Ship is a 61.5 meter beauty that just docked into Manila this week, as part of its Climate Justice Tour in Southeast Asia. Its Philippine pitstop includes sailing to Guimaras and then Tacloban before venturing to Papua New Guinea.
It is quite an icon, housing a campaigning office, a helicopter pad and quite a compact kitchen. On Thursday, GMA News Online was able to take a tour of the ship, meet its female captain Hettie Geenen, and chat with chef Daniel Bravo after his cooking demo for the students of the School of the Holy Spirit.
Joined by Filipino chef Ginny Villar and TV host Love Anover, the handsome Mexican chef told us about leaving the hotel chef life, spending 15 years on board the ship, feeding an international crew of 15 persons healthy meals informed by the environment.
Tell me about this dish you just made.
I made ceviche, traditional Peruvian Latin American dish, usually preferred with fish, but I chose the mung bean because it’s usually consumed here in the Philippines. There are so many scientific facts that beans nurture the soil. So by eating this, we get to nurture the planet and also ourselves with high nutrition.
You taught nutritional ecosystem to the students. Can you explain further?
A tree is not just a tree, it’s part of the whole jungle. A product of a whole ecosystem. It’s the same with food. [Take the] bean: it’s very nutritious and it’s going to give us a lot more if we combine it with other fruits, like lime. We get to absorb more proteins and more nutrients. They complement each other. That’s what’s amazing about food that could work as a whole biodiversity system by itself.
Before becoming Rainbow Warrior’s cook, you worked the traditional route of hotels and restaurants. How big of an adjustment was it for you?
It’s just completely a different world. I was trained to be a chef in a restaurant from the University, and that time I think the industry was moving towards something more economically-oriented, there was no consciousness [yet of] where food is coming from. I cooked for a multi-million Mexican businessman, I also cooked for the president. All of these jobs provided me with rich experiences. But I was not fulfilled.
So I had to go deeper to the root of food and environment. I love being an environmentalist, activist and a chef. I can go through every single port that we go, try to contact the local producers and I use their produce to feed the crew. It’s a completely different world and I cannot picture myself going back, focusing on money without giving.
What do you like to cook for the crew?
There’s so many. I like cooking not necessarily plant-based but vegetarian. Like fresh pasta, pizza, but also a curry with coconut milk and so on. I also like making banana bread without dairy. I use coconut instead and it’s fantastic!
The thing here as well is we have so many nationalities. American, Mexican, Filipino, Indonesian, Canadian, from Netherlands. I just try my best to strike a balance. So for example today I made vegetarian lasagna, tonight it’s steamed rice with stir- fry. It’s like traveling, this is a ship and we’re traveling through food but hopefully, they get a taste of home.
After 15 years sailing and cooking around the world, what more do you want to do?
Hopefully, I could do more of this, more exposure through food we can have positive change. I actually have a personal project myself. I’ve been travelling to many places, collecting documenting farm stories and indigenous peoples about their ecological habits and also exposure against industrial agriculture. It’s called Feeding Freedom. I want to keep on linking farms and consumers and I hope that through me, they will have a voice. — LA, GMA News
