Eat it!
I come from a long and hardy line of pioneer women. I am proud of all of them. But one of those proud families has left me with both a curse and blessing. I grew up with a story that has followed me wherever I went. One of these amazing ladies was on the plains and spilled her wheat somewhere en route. Being the resourceful person she was, she promptly baked bread right there. Brigham Young promised her and her family would never starve if they never wasted food.
This legend still exists now. One could intellectualize this and say, "duh, if you don't waste you don't starve." However, I have always felt, possibly wrongly, that I have some special obligation to not waste food. So, I wince at quarter bits of hamburger, half-eaten apples and bits of yogurt. I hesitate and think before I throw. My fridge has been sadly filled with bite-size containers of left-overs. I imagined the bony hand of my grandmother slapping my hand if I did not take care of the small bits my family had not finished. When I moved-out from my in-laws, my brother-in-law asked if the bony hand went with me; it does.
The other day, my son was eating a banana and tossed it, mostly all there, into the garbage. I marched over there, grabbed that fruit, rinsed it with hot water (universal cleaner) and slapped it back on the counter. I gave a short order that in our family we do not waste food...so step up, sit down and eat! I know. You are thinking, "Was it surrounded by garbage? Well, that's garbage!" That damn bony hand makes me do crazy things.
This legend still exists now. One could intellectualize this and say, "duh, if you don't waste you don't starve." However, I have always felt, possibly wrongly, that I have some special obligation to not waste food. So, I wince at quarter bits of hamburger, half-eaten apples and bits of yogurt. I hesitate and think before I throw. My fridge has been sadly filled with bite-size containers of left-overs. I imagined the bony hand of my grandmother slapping my hand if I did not take care of the small bits my family had not finished. When I moved-out from my in-laws, my brother-in-law asked if the bony hand went with me; it does.
The other day, my son was eating a banana and tossed it, mostly all there, into the garbage. I marched over there, grabbed that fruit, rinsed it with hot water (universal cleaner) and slapped it back on the counter. I gave a short order that in our family we do not waste food...so step up, sit down and eat! I know. You are thinking, "Was it surrounded by garbage? Well, that's garbage!" That damn bony hand makes me do crazy things.
Comments
sadly, i suffer from bony-finger syndrome as well...really! i harp on my kids for wasting food. and i over eat often because of it (finishing up leftovers). pathetic.
I hadn't heard the "spilled wheat while crossing the plains" story, so that probably descended from your Dad's ancestors. But you must have inherited some of the "must not waste food" fanaticism from your Mom's side, too, because it is also in my genes.
Over the years, I have developed a comprehensive left-over management system, complete with a dated food list on the fridge, dated labels on containers, and different containers used for cold vs. hot food. Instead taking a cute little brown-bag lunch to work, I lug in a grocery bag of left-over food in those little containers. Other people are heating up a Lean Cuisine dinner, and I might have a dish of green beans, a 1/3 piece of chicken, two different kinds of rice (my husband likes to cook rice) and maybe a bit of scrambled egg.
I have stopped short of saving the food that other people's children haven't finished. You go to any large occasion at my Mom's house, and you'll see bits of food left on plates at the little grandkid table. This occurs because of the buffet-style of serving and the huge abundance of choices. What kid will say "No" to five kinds of beautifully colored fruit when they really only like two kinds? I look at those plates, have a little chat with myself about how that is not my own kid's spit on that half-eaten apple slice, and then toss. ... But my OCD self always has to have that little chat. It is so hard to throw away good food.
Someday I will turn into the bony-handed grandmother. Just you wait.
I do, however, have issues with children wasting perfectly good fruit or pitching a yogurt container that is half full. But that translates into a wasting money thing for me. (I realize that throwing away dinner leftovers should illicit the same response, but for some reason it just doesn't).
: )