Leftovers can make a difference
I had been thinking about cooking this meal for a few days. I’ve been a solo act this week , eating one-person meals while my spouse and family cavort among the Greek isles, with my blessing, of course. Translated, that means sandwiches and cereal and fried eggs, corn on the cob and toast. All washed down with copious amounts of bottled, sugar free Arnold Palmer.
It was Ok. It made the day easy, with no real preparation involved. No hour-long prep for a meal that took, at the max, 10 minutes to eat, followed by an hour long cleanup. No crumbs – I was living an adult female fantasy.
You know those 30-minute meals that Rachael Ray touts? Who cleans up after she finishes? I rest my case.
Then I spotted these beautiful tomatoes at Nojaims and it came to me: summer pasta sauce, a sauce of tomatoes, garlic, oil, maybe some shallots, freshly-grated parmesan cheese and shards of fresh basil (from my back yard) all enrobing a healthy portion of ziti or paccheri. I could probably scare up a glass of wine, too.
So, last night, I followed my gustatory dream and made that sauce. It was, oh, how can I put this? Delicious? Yes! Satisfying? Yes! Worth the effort? Definitely! Better than a bowl of farina? You bet!
Then I read an article about food waste and global warming and the post prandial satisfaction morphed into consumer guilt. After all, I didn’t use all of the tomatoes. I cut away some of the flesh around the stems I discarded the skin on the shallots and garlic and disposed of the water in which I cooked the pasta by dumping it into the sink. I put the cardboard and plastic packaging in either the garbage or the recycle bins. Did those tomatoes have to be in a plastic box? The shallots in cardboard? The garlic in a plastic net bag? What do I do with the gigantic plastic bottle that holds my Arnold?
On the plus side, I did have a superb glass of red wine. The bottle from which it came is eminently recyclable.
The article was a clarion call to consumers of foodstuffs to be aware of how much food affects global warming, especially the food and its packaging that we throw away. According to the World Wildlife Fund, we throw away the equivalent of 37 million car exhausts a year in food waste. Thirty percent of the food produced is not eaten and becomes the source of methane in landfills or 8 percent of total greenhouse gases. This is disturbing. What will be left for my grandchildren?
Producing, storing and distributing food requires energy not just from the sun, but from water and fossil fuels for power to plow and plant, harvest and transport food, whether animal or vegetable. And think about the gasses produced by ruminant animals, e.g. cows … and lactose intolerant older folks with balky digestive systems.
When I was a child we wasted little. World War II limited what was available and one had to be creative and parsimonious when it came to producing meals. My grandmother never threw the skins or stems of vegetables away. An apple core had additional uses in her hands. She kept a glass container in the refrigerator in which she stored things like potato, carrot and parsnip skins, and the bones from chickens or other odd protein sources. Once a week, whatever was in the container became the basis for a broth. One medium sized chicken was the source of many meals. There were eight of us to feed off what she would call an “old chicken,” One meal would be pieces of chicken meat and vegetables. A second would be smaller pieces scavenged from the bones in a cream sauce over biscuits which were made with the rendered fat from the same chicken and last, the bones, backs and wing tips were used to make soup. Sometimes that second meal was chicken soup with actual pieces of chicken. Nothing was wasted. I think I was 25 before I knew that people made chicken soup with whole chickens.
When we bought vegetables, they came au natural, in a net bag that we brought to the store. The butcher wrapped meat in butcher paper; the same with the fish monger.
We hardly had any garbage. Our garbage can was half the size of what we use today and that was for a whole week’s disposables for eight people.
Now? Two of us send out two recycle bins and two garbage cans full almost every week. My guilt rises exponentially when I think of this. I went downstairs and checked the almost-full garbage bin under the sink … mostly packaging.
It would be so easy to be more mindful of what I purchase and how I use it. Can I purchase items that are not wrapped in plastic or cardboard? Can I better use up all that I buy or cook? No more science projects in the back of the refrigerator. I have to think of myself as a contestant on “Chopped.” How can I use what I have? How can I be more aware of what I throw away?
We have tried composting. We even bought a composter. It sits at the corner of our homestead under a maple tree. The stuff in that bin, leaves, garden weeds, veggie peelings and some dirt, has sat in that composter for two years. It has changed but it is not compost. I don’t know what it is and I’m afraid to dispose of it. I’m not sure where it should go.
There is no doubt that you can successfully create luscious compost. I have friends in Skaneateles who have three composting bins, beautiful bins with compost in its various stages. I am so envious that I am green, and not in a good way, either.
Humans are inventive and, sometimes, that creativity has unintended consequences. After we bade a fond farewell to the hunter-gatherer economy, its successors, agriculture and animal husbandry, have led us into both riches and penury. The latter reflecting the means by which we have led ourselves into a world that is changing in ways that are not healthful for humans, non-humans or inanimate objects.
I have scant influence over the assault on the EPA and legislation that protects our soil and water or the idiots that are chopping down the rainforest, depriving us of carbon dioxide digesting trees, but I can do something about food.
If we become more aware, are more vigilant in how we shop, prepare and consume food, we will cause changes in the supply chain that can mean a lot. According to “The climate impact of the food in the back of your fridge,” an article by Chad Frischmann, “The decisions we all make every day on the food we produce, purchase and consume is perhaps the single most important contribution that an individual can make.” It’s a real positive action that is relatively painless and could be a kind of fun.
Think of a contest to use up all the small containers of ketchup and tartar sauce that seem to appear in your refrigerator, not to mention packets of soy and duck sauces.
So, tonight I have leftovers from yesterday, some peppers, a lime, two lemons, a watermelon, a loaf of bread, two English muffins, assorted condiments, two ears of corn, half a jar of marmalade and some pickles. And, oh yes, a container of salted chocolate covered caramels is in the fridge as well. The pantry is full.
This will take some thought. But, I’m on it. Next, I’ll be saving grease in a can on the back of the stove.
Ann Ferro is a mother, a grandmother and a retired social studies teacher. While still figuring out what she wants to be when she grows up, she lives in Marcellus with lots of books, a spouse and a large orange cat.
