To say I have complicated feelings about leftovers is an understatement. I'm still disturbed by the memory of my college roommate wielding a mysterious plastic-wrapped lump she'd unearthed in the refrigerator's cheese drawer. "This can't hurt me, right? It's cheese. It's supposed to be green!" The cheese, which had probably been in the fridge for a year, looked as though it should have been confined to a terrarium.
One of the modern home cook's challenges is keeping track of leftovers, a task I cannot imagine managing in a busy household. People can quickly forget when something was purchased, or cooked, or when it was first opened. I've taken to labelling glass bottles and storage containers with removable stickers on to which I scribble dates.
Under the wrong circumstances, the question, "does this smell OK?" can make my blood run cold.
While sniffing the contents of a carton of milk to gauge its freshness, I'm often afraid I'll hallucinate a foulness that just isn't there. How many of us observe stamped use-by dates (more conservative than expiration dates) as if they were unarguable truths delineating the safe and the inedible? The more resourceful will let milk past its prime turn naturally sour, and then use it to make the best biscuit dough on earth. The faint of heart who worry over news headlines are more likely to pour expired milk down the drain as a precautionary measure. I rely on a combination of common sense and my five senses. It was an uncharacteristically tangy smell that stopped me from serving four pounds of fresh burrata, a creamy, silky cheese that's like celestial mozzarella, to dinner guests last summer. Even though I'd ordered it through my cheesemonger and the sell-by date was a week away, something was clearly wrong; by the next morning, the cheese had liquefied completely and had begun to curdle. When I took it back to the shop, the grocer took one whiff and blanched.
There is rarely any food languishing in my fridge or requiring accountability. I keep few leftovers, and what I don't eat right away, I give away. Still, when I discover some limp parsley on a shelf or a banged-up grapefruit rolling around the produce drawer, I feel a pang of guilt for its demise. The average household throws away thousands of dirhams' worth of food every year; even more if there are children. As disgraceful as waste may be, creatively incorporating leftovers into dishes that don't scream "Hi! I'm recycled goods!" is an art form around which an entire cookbook genre has been built. Some of these books are depressingly repetitive.
When transferred to a restaurant environment, food-disposal remorse is a more diffuse emotion. Maybe it's because the fate of my restaurant leftovers depends not just on social culture and context, but also on practical concerns, such as storage and mobility, and the quantity and quality of the food. For me, the decision to squander hinges partly on candour: I hate carrying home, as a matter of principle alone, food that I didn't particularly enjoy to begin with, only to ignore the oyster pail container until I have to throw it out. But we don't always clean our plates, and it's not always a matter of portion control.
At their best, leftovers are like a cookie tin that's always full, a caricature that smacks of the chaotic abundance distinguishing mythical, family-size comforts from single-serving austerity. In reality, many families cannot conceive of eating this way (for a variety of reasons), just as the world is also filled with single folk who can. Leftovers provide nourishment devoid of the pretence, ceremony and imposition of a formal meal, with a casual accessibility that can be powerfully reassuring. Unless you're enjoying leftovers as part of a formal meal, few of the normal rules of dining apply, leaving assembly and presentation up to the person who's going to be eating them.
Sometimes, leftovers are just as good as they were the first time around, sometimes better. Age has a similarly edifying effect on people as it does on pot roast, causing it to mellow; to acquire depth; to settle. Flavours grow focused and concentrated, textures integrate, stews thicken and set, and vegetables absorb broth and give up their water. A dish is transformed from good to great, and the only variable is time.
I'm actually pretty picky about leftovers; not everything is delicious served cold (though admittedly, some are especially delicious), and the act of reheating changes things besides the temperature of a dish. The most inspired leftovers are ones resuscitated through proper reheating- casseroles crisped under a broiler until browned and bubbly, cold roast chicken salad, dumplings or rice steamed the first time around and fried the second with leftover vegetables and plenty of seasoning.
Some things make pointless leftovers, especially after a ride on the microwave's carousel with its legacy of ruined crusts and unevenly heated food. In my kitchen, lost-cause leftovers include sushi, egg dishes, shawarma, French fries and most bread, including Indian naan bread and baguettes. You can turn a stale baguette into something wonderful, but you can't turn it back into a good baguette.
Some people like cold spaghetti, but some people also like mullets and water-balloon fights. With the exception of lasagne, I also struggle with liking leftover pasta. Congealed, it turns to mush upon warming, but I've learnt to reserve some pasta cooking water, for adding to leftovers when reheating. It releases the noodles from their strangled embrace in a magical minute.
Aside from a decline in nutritive value, are leftovers harmful? An Ayurvedic doctor I consulted years ago talked at length abut leftovers as being rancid. He claimed that they weakened digestion and, if consumed regularly, would cause problems in the gut. All empirical evidence points to a happy, healthy gut for me, but as with everything, heaven lies in the balance. Eating freshly made food for every meal is a full-time job.
At a neighbour's farewell party last month, people helped themselves all afternoon and evening to pizzas stacked on a picnic table. The pizzas sat outside through the course of the evening and well into the next day. I assumed that my neighbours lacked either the inspiration or the available fridge space to move them. After the pizzas had been sitting outdoors for more than 24 hours, I was shocked to see my neighbour helping himself to a big slice. Pizza that's been left out overnight poses such a significant risk that the US department of agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service now lists, as its first tip under "Food Safety Tips for College Students", an explanation of how eating it is a bad idea.
I recently made a chickpea salad with a curried goat's-cheese dressing, with instructions that clearly stated that the dish needed to be made a day in advance in order for the flavours to marry. I chose to ignore this advice, and the salad was forgettable. The next day, it was ambrosial. Like chili and stew, the flavours of curry deepen and sweeten over time.
Why haven't I yet managed to suspend my prejudices against planning leftovers in advance, for the sake of better potato salad, braises, lentils, beans and meatloaf? It's aesthetic, for the most part: it seems matronly and counter-intuitive. A steakhouse I frequent offers a soup special that changes daily, listed on the menu as "yesterday's soup", employing the marketing logic that all soups taste better the next day. Whether this is true or not, I'm not automatically oriented toward leftovers, so I find the marketing somewhat repellent. If I want leftovers, I'd rather make them myself. After all, that's part of the fun.
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