The Meat Shall Inherit the Fridge

Recently my wife and I helped throw a party and, at the end of the night, found ourselves in possession of multiple large vats of leftovers. This was a problem, bordering on a calamity. Leftovers can be great, but not by the bucketful -- not by the tub, not by the drum. These leftovers, we quickly realized, were going to shadow our every waking moment. Most problematic was the chicken: thousands of little strips crammed and wedged and mashed together in a rectangular, nearly solid block of meat. The very act of removing chicken from the meat-block seemed to generate more chicken than had been there before. This was the ultimate leftovers nightmare: spontaneously generating leftovers. Like something out of ancient mythology. The more you eat, the more there's left over!

We sensed that we would not find peace and serenity until we found a way to eat all that chicken. Every meal suddenly had to involve it. Chicken sandwiches, chicken soup, chicken salad, chicken and eggs, chicken smoothies. Chicken was, for us, what coconuts are to castaways.

Excellent social plans would be thrown into chaos because of our need to process our increasingly dry and unpalatable poultry.

"The guy at work gave us four tickets to the ballgame tonight."

"But . . . what about the chicken?"

The chicken soon became almost like an additional member of the family. But a crazy one. We would try not to talk about the deranged bird in the refrigerator, but we all knew it was there. Our friends gradually came to understand that we had a mysterious Issue that was not to be discussed. Only a few confidants were allowed into the loop, and they would ask, forming their words as sensitively as possible, "Any progress on the, um . . . you know . . . ?"

They meant well, but I noticed that they didn't volunteer to come over and eat any of it. No! When it came to concern, they phoned it in. They drew a line, with them on one side and our leftovers on the other. That's the thing about most modern friendships: They never, ever extend to eating your leftovers. For that you have to rely on immediate family members, and random neighborhood boys.

Let's pull back and think about leftovers in general. Are they an asset or an obligation? Food or just foodstuff?

The very word is fraught with ambiguity. Plural or singular? Clearly it appears to be a plural word, but sometimes we use it as a singular: "We ate leftovers and it was pretty good." The individual components of leftovers can get mixed up and undifferentiated. Left to their own devices, leftovers have a natural desire to become mush.

Everyone has a Leftovers Policy. Like, three days for a drumstick, two for a burger, one for sushi. The policy may be unwritten, or even slightly subconscious, and certainly subject to revision/abrogation should the specific leftover item prove unexpectedly repugnant. The goal for most of us is to be fair to the leftovers. But we've all been burned by them. Nefarious leftover items have wriggled and burrowed and smooth-talked their way into unseen corners of the refrigerator. We all know what we're talking about: food that turns into a little ecosystem that ought to be in a natural history museum. Used to be guacamole, now it's just fuzz.

My wife and I are in a very vulnerable position when it comes to leftovers, because we're affluent enough to buy plenty of food, but not so affluent that we can throw any of it away without hating ourselves. Especially meat. One hears the mewling of the lambs on their way to slaughter.

The problem is, we're also a house full of people -- to be specific, girls -- for whom eating is often a survival tool of last resort. It's something one does only under extreme pressure and after every possible alternative (existing entirely on water and air, for example) has been exhausted.