Trash
I’ve had the pleasure of testing a few of Tamar Adler’s recipes lately for her upcoming cookbook. Adler previously wrote the beautiful book “An Everlasting Meal” which reads like a slow meditation on the creative process of cooking. She’s always had a particular obsession with making use of leftovers, and with this new book, it seems like she’s leaning in to the idea of garbage as ingredient. All the recipes are based around vegetables past their prime or the cereal at the bottom of the box. Some of them are so simple I feel kind of stupid putting the few things together and spooning out a bite, but I have to say that the woman is a genius for flavor and texture combinations. I would never have thought to put Doritos and cabbage together but the different kinds of crunch are really perfect together. Anthony calls it “raccoon food.”
I’ve also been drawn to trash food and the magic we work with kitchen odds and ends. It’s how most of us cook most of the time — we’re not shopping for all the esoteric ingredients and getting fresh produce for some Ottolenghi recipe most of the time, we’re opening the fridge already hungry and visualizing the most direct route from the piles of stuff in there to a satisfying meal. I find a lot of pleasure in the process. Cooking is a performative sport, and never is that more apparent than during periods of improvisation. When you’re in the zone with the food, paying attention to it and channelling your imagination, you can make the most delicious things. When you’re distracted and tired, sometimes it sucks.
Our family meals at the restaurant were pretty much always trash food. One of the tasting course dishes involved cucumber balls made with a tiny melon baller, so funny-shaped cucumbers that looked like corn with all the kernels eaten out made up the majority of our family meal salads. Another dish required peeling off the tough outer layer of king oyster mushrooms, and it turns out those peels have a wonderful meaty texture that make for some of the best veggie nachos I’ve ever had. Of course there were also days and days of french fries (“disco fries,” animal-style, poutine) the week after we closed lunch service, and countless hotel pans of unidentifiable cafeteria slop. Trash food is not always pleasing, but it is always successful if it uses up leftovers.
Something I love about traveling is discovering the creative uses of leftovers in different cuisines. I’ve been wanting to have a potluck party called “Old Bread” that celebrates all the ways different cultures cook day-old bread. There’s panzanella and ribollita in Tuscany, kottu roti in Sri Lanka, migas and chilaquiles in Mexico, French toast, bread pudding, and Thanksgiving stuffing…I have to admit that I tend to like the leftover bread dishes better than the originals. They’re usually cozier, more intimate family food than what might have been served at the original dinner.
I’d love to hear about your trash! If there’s a family recipe you inherited or something you concocted yourself with your own raccoon hands, please tell me about it and I’ll try to reflect it back here.
What I'm reading
An Everlasting Meal, by Tamar Adler
Great meals rarely start at points that all look like beginnings. They usually pick up where something else leaves off. This is how most of the best things are made — imagine if the world had to begin from scratch each dawn: a tree would never grow, nor would we ever get to see the etchings of gentle rings on a clamshell.