Ongoing water restrictions imposed on Cape Town residents could lead to the dawn of a new culinary era in South Africa’s gastronomic capital, where "waterless dinners" are currently being researched and advertised.
S/Zout — a collective of Dutch and South African "food designers" — has proposed a series of three pop-up waterless dinners to take place in January 2018, at which all meals will be cooked using "salt-tolerant crops", S/Zout says on the event’s Facebook page.
They say the event, "explores the use of sea water in agriculture".
"The project presents research into the edible properties and possibilities of sea water and sea salt, to draw attention to the worldwide water problem that has reached crisis level in Western Cape."
Crops that can be grown using sea water include potatoes, lettuce, cabbage, carrots, tomatoes, strawberries, onions and garlic, the team says.
It’s not clear yet what will be served at the waterless dinners, but the team have previously created seaweed bacon, insect sausages, saltwater soda, lettuce ketchups, and cabbage cake iced with carrot jam.
There will only be 87 tickets available in total for the dinners, which is the amount of water (in litres) one person is allowed to use per day.
All profits, the group says, will be donated to sustainability organisation Veld and Sea.
Checkout the Facebook event page for details.

PHILLIPS STATION, Calif. (AP) — It’s been almost a year since Los Angeles residents felt any real rain, and precious little snow is in the Sierras, but water managers say it’s too early for fears that California is sliding back into drought as abruptly as the state fell out of it.
Plunging rods into snowpacks to measure the snow depth, water managers use the event to acquaint Californians with the state of the water supply.
Southern California wildfires that grew to the biggest in state history in December — normally the rainy season in California — already have made clear the bottom line: The state is far drier than normal so far this winter.
Near-record rainfall last year unleashed widespread flooding and snapped a historic five-year drought.
The wet 2017 allowed Gov.
Jerry Brown in April to lift a drought emergency declaration that had brought mandatory water conservation orders for cities and towns, and water cutbacks for many rural users.
Snowpack in the Sierras, which supplies a steady flow of water in good years as the snow melts, stood Tuesday at one-fourth of normal for this point in the year.
It’s not time to despair, yet, Carlson said.
Last year’s copious rains have left reservoirs with plenty of water.
And it’s early in the winter rainy season yet — California normally receives half its rain between December and February.

Some areas benefited from short, heavy falls from isolated thunder storms on Tuesday, but MetService forecaster April Clark said Thursday could bring showers and gales, and Friday is expected to bring more widespread rain.
* Drought declared in Taranaki, parts of Wellington and Manawatū/Whanganui * Irrigators going flat out after more than a month without rain * Manawatū River water at 30-year low * In Manawatū, a drought is spreading like a patchwork quilt * Drought on the horizon for farms if no rain soon * From water, water everywhere to a possible drought A level 4 restriction was declared for Levin on New Year’s Day, which means the town supply cannot be used for most outdoor purposes, including for swimming pools, private or commercial gardens or washing down boats.
Less-strict water restrictions also remain in Shannon, Tokomaru, Foxton and Foxton Beach, and in Palmerston North, Ashhurst, Bunnythorpe, Longburn, Linton, Pahiatua, Woodville, Norsewood, Akitio, Eketāhuna and Dannevirke.
Many areas of Manawatū have been bone dry, with next to no rain in November and only one day of meaningful rainfall in December.
Palmerston North and Horowhenua districts have a total fire ban in place, and there are restrictions or bans in parts of the Manawatu, Rangitīkei and Tararua districts.
Hew Dalrymple, who farms east of Bulls in Rangitīkei, said while the rain was good, it was already too late to blunt the impact on farmers.
"It’s not a particularly pretty picture … and it’s not going to be good for the regional economy."
The drought would have ongoing effects, including a poor harvest of cattle feed for later in the year.
Silage and baleage were only about 30 per cent of the previous year’s levels, and farmers were already using winter stocks.
The drought left farmers facing some hard choices, and it was wise to plan as if the recent rain wouldn’t be enough to significantly change things, he said.

Despite entering the New Year with drought conditions and little measurable rainfall in recent months, Lubbock ended 2017 wetter than average.
The Hub City saw 21.95 inches of precipitation last year – 2.83 inches above average – thanks in part to heavy rains in the summer and early fall, said Joe Jurecka, senior meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Lubbock.
Since those rainy days during the warmer parts of the year, Mother Nature has been stingy with the moisture.
The last recorded precipitation in Lubbock as 0.03 of an inch Dec. 8 at Lubbock Preston Smith International Airport.
Even those snow flurries that powdered much of the area didn’t register at the official recording site at the airport.
“It’s actually pretty typical for this time of the year,” Jurecka.
“We typically don’t see much rainfall in the winter.” The U.S.
Climate Predication Center’s drought outlook shows drought conditions persisting in the South Plains/Panhandle region through the end of March.
The U.S. Drought Monitor shows Lubbock County under “moderate” drought conditions, with more severe, and even extreme, drought conditions noted to the north and east of the Caprock.
“All it takes is one event to change that,” Jurecka said, although on the short term, the Weather Service does not have any notable precipitation in Lubbock’s forecast into early next week.

Dr Anthony Turton, environmental expert, warned of a “deep deep crisis” in Cape Town due to a series of unseasonably dry winters.
Officials have warned citizens to prepare for a drought and predict ‘Day Zero’, based on expected rainfall, will take place on April 29 when dams will drop below 13.5 per cent.
‘Day Zero’ will force residents to line up at 200 checkpoints across the city to collect daily water allotments Dr Turton, a professor at the Centre for Environmental Management at the University of the Free State, told New York Times: “The city of Cape Town could conceivably become the first major city in the world to run out of water, and that could happen in the next four months.
“It’s not an impending crisis, we’re deep, deep, deep in crisis.” Residents are being urged to save water by turning off their taps while brushing their teeth, avoid flushing the toilet and use hand sanitiser instead of water and soap, as they are restricted to 87 litres of water a day.
But fears are growing as citizens struggle to hit the household consumption target of less than 500 million litres per day.
Zara Nicholson, the spokeswoman for Executive Mayor Patricia de Lille, said: “We are all in this together and we can only save water while there is still water to be saved.” Tue, March 22, 2016 Some 650 million people, or one in 10 of the world’s population, have no access to safe water, putting them at risk of infectious diseases and premature death.
Take a look through the struggle for clean water across the world.
Meanwhile, visitors have been greeted with signs saying “Slow the flow: Save H20” and “Don’t waste a drop!” when they reach South Africa’s airports.
However, Ms Nicholson insisted visitors are still welcome, adding: “The City of Cape Town certainly welcomes and encourages all tourists to Cape Town to visit our beautiful iconic city.
“Tourism is a major job creator and one our most important sectors”.

As for residents, they may not use more than 87 litres per person per day in total, which is not even enough for a 10-minute shower.
She has put a 40-litre bucket of water in the hotel’s hall for people to get an idea of what the amount represents.
These exemptions don’t apply if you run a carwash, like Cliff Bauermeister.
But the drought is not a problem for him because he uses waterless products in his Perfect Car carwash.
Day Zero The countdown has begun to what people in Cape Town are calling "Day Zero" when the city’s six major reservoirs are expected to run dry.
But the problem is more in water production than water use.
Because of the unprecedented three-year drought, dam levels have dropped to 32 percent.
Day Zero will arrive if they drop below 14 percent.
"We are building two desalinisation plants and each one will bring on about seven million litres per day but people will now have to get used to the fact that water will never be in abundance again and we must save it at all time," Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille warns.
Besides, not every Cape Town resident is cooperating.

2017 saw some of the worst wildfires on record in the western United States, and if the earth continues warming, we should expect more like them, says a new study.
Research findings published Monday in Nature Climate Change said that over a quarter of the earth’s land would become significantly drier with a 2ºC rise in temperature — but that limiting global warming to under 1.5ºC could significantly reduce the amount of land affected.
The research team reached these conclusions after studying projections from 27 global climate models to identify the parts of the world that aridifcation would impact.
Aridification, explains Dr. Chang-Eui Park from SusTech, “can critically impact such areas as agriculture, water quality, and biodiversity.
It can also lead to more droughts and wildfires – similar to those seen raging across California.” It can also lead to more severe droughts, which are already becoming a problem across many regions of the world, including the Mediterranean, southern Africa, and eastern coast of Australia.
The human impacts of this are dire; drier climates are linked to resource wars, food shortages, and famine.
One of the world’s worst ongoing conflicts, the war in Syria, for example, is at least partially linked to a 2006 drought that led to a massive rural-urban migration of farmers, putting additional strain on Syrian cities and, combined with other factors, leading to uprising.
Every other country in the world, except the United States has signed onto this goal — including Syria.
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STOCKTON (KPIX) If you really want to see how dry December has been you have to leave the Bay Area and come out to the Central Valley — to farm country.
We talked first to Ken Vogel who grows fruit trees near Stockton.
“Besides being dry with lack of rain we have some very high temperatures — middle-sixties in December is pretty well unheard of in this area,” Vogel said.
Moisture in the soil protects the tree roots when the weather turns cold.
The reservoirs that supply cities are still full from last year’s heavy precipitation but most growers rely to some degree on yearly rainfall for their livelihoods.
No one is panicking yet about a return to the drought but you can tell they’re a little nervous about how the year is starting out.
“Going into that drought, we figured we’d have one dry year.
Wwell, we got two dry years.
So we are gun-shy,” Vogel said.
Stockton usually gets about 3 1/3 inches of rain in December.

"We had a lot of snow last year and everyone was expecting we were going to be off to a great start.
By the first of May, we knew we were in trouble,” said Schmidt.
But, farmers and ranchers will remember the year by one word: drought.
"Next year, if we’re anywhere near this dry, we’re going to be selling an awful lot more cattle than what we had to experience in 2017,” said Schmidt.
"Going into the winter season, we still have a severe drought on our hands and that’s probably not going to change for a while to come.
But the outlook through late March, really before the growing season starts, not faring so well here for the Northern Plains.
We will likely continue to see drought conditions,” said Lawrence.
"Those plants can handle it for one year.
The second year, we’re going to have to maybe delay turnout.
The current drought monitor shows that 60 percent of North Dakota is still in a drought, but no areas are listed as extreme drought.

OPINION: It’s been a grim start to 2018 for dairy farmers in drought-ravaged parts of Taranaki.
* Farmers despair as Taranaki drought persists * Drought in Taranaki, Wellington, Manawatu Whanganui has farmers worried * Drought on the horizon for farms if no rain soon The dire situation has forced James to take drastic steps to ensure the herd he looks after survives until the autumn rains spur his pastures back into life.
James told me that in a normal season his farm milks twice a day until May.
This week he’ll cull some cows.
Not long after James dried off more than 100 of his youngest or low-producing cows, he received a welcome visit from the new Minister for Agriculture Damien O’Connor.
The cash will be used to help affected communities, organise fun local events, arrange recovery facilitators who will work one-on-one with farmers and coordinate drought support.
In a normal spring, the Lawns would harvest 300 bales of grass silage.
But wind and a lack of rain after planting this spring, has meant crop failures are widespread.
DairyNZ is using its first round of post-holiday farmer discussion groups this month to ramp up support and advice to farmers.
Now is the time to plan for when it does rain again, and to know that your community is there for you.