Let's Write about leftover cuisine

Check the website "Cook For Your Life" for creative leftover cuisine:

To me, "leftovers" are a subjective concept. For some people, leftovers are breakfast, while for others, they are meant to feed the garbage disposal. In my opinion, leftovers are not really "left over" until they turn yucky in the refrigerator. Up until such time, I will turn my most creative culinary imagination into finding how to be serve them, without falling into the victimization of the "leftover" stereotype.

Avoid the cliché, "What? Leftovers AGAIN?"

Let's try another term. How about "fending"? Maybe the term "refrigerator grazing" is a good description? In the May 24, 2021, The New Yorker, a letter by John Paoli of Missoula, Montana calls the process "spin-mastering". He wrote how "spinning" means tossing up whatever is in the refrigerator and creating a new and totally different take on what it was, in the first place. In other words, the art of re-creation".

Whatever noun or adjective you and your family defines the use of food that was not consumed in the main course, yes, "left over", the meaning of the concepts- fending, grazing or spinning, is essentially meant to not waste food. Therefore, learning how to use leftovers is important.

In an echo essay, Roz Chast writes about this process in The New Yorker, April 26 & May 3, 2021.

“Fending” and Other Terms for Fridge-Foraging Dinners

AKA - leftovers cuisine!

“Getcheroni,” “eek,” “having weirds,” “going Darwin,” “OYO” (on your own), and “farrapo velho”—Portuguese for “old rag.”

Huh? And for the forage menu, try using catchy names like "getcharoni"? 

So, Chast wrote, we were not in the cooking mood. We didn’t feel like ordering out, and, since we hadn’t got our second vaccine, we didn’t want to go to a restaurant. 

I said what one of us says to the other at times like these: “Should we just fend?”

“Fending” is our household’s word for picking around the kitchen, seeing what’s there, and making a meal of it. We’re not complete savages—i.e., we don’t stand next to the refrigerator at any old hour shovelling food into our mouths. No. We eat together at a table, which has been set. We might even open a bottle of wine. But there is no prep, aside from maybe heating stuff up. It’s very likely that we’ll eat totally different things. I might have leftover chicken fried rice, some lox and cream cheese on Triscuits and the end of a jar of pickles. He might use up the chicken salad, Tuesday’s chili, and the last of the roasted cauliflower, which, by the way, is still good. (Hmmm? Leftover smorgasbord?)

I got curious about what other people called this activity. I polled friends. Turns out there are lots of fenders. Also scroungers, scavengers, and foragers. One friend’s family called it hunt-and-peck. Then I put the question to Instagram, and in a few days I received more than seventeen hundred responses. Here are my favorite responses: California plate, spa plate, eek, mustard with crackers, having weirds, getcheroni, goblin meal, gishing, phumphering, peewadiddly, picky-poke, screamers, trash panda, rags and bottles, black-cow night, blackout bingo, miff muffer moof, anarchy kitchen, mush gooey, fossick, going feral, going Darwin, schlunz, goo gots, oogle moogle, you getsty, jungle dinner, dirt night, mousy-mousy, and having Pucci. Two different people used the term “ifits,” as in “if it’s in the refrigerator, it’s fair game.”


Several people liked acronyms: oyo (on your own), yoyo (you’re on your own), myo (make your own), fifi (find it and fix it), and core (clean out refrigerator of everything). Someone told me that her grandmother called it “eating promiscuously.” Someone else, as a kid, called it “orgy.”

There were also some non-­English expressions for fending. In Persian, it’s khert o pert, which means “odds and ends.” 

In Quebec, it’s touski. That’s short for tout ce qui reste—“all that’s left.” In Portuguese, it’s farrapo velho. Translation: “old rag.”

One person told me that, in her family, fending was known as “zoobecki,” which was “icebox” spelled backward. Which is true, if you squint.

Okay! Up to the challenge! Maine Writer created top three favorites "creative leftover" recipes list:

Gold award to "Shepherd's Pie".  In my opinion, a Shepherd's Pie is anything in the "zoobecki", so long as the base ingredient is mashed potatoes.  Therefore, it's a natural menu served up after a turkey dinner when there's usually lots of leftover mashed potatoes and gravy.  Don't worry about cooking Shepherd's Pie with beef, it's just as good with shredded chicken and turkey. 

Silver award winning leftover award goes to "Frittata del giorno" (Frittata of the day).  Yup! Just toss up any leftovers into eggs and add shredded cheese- mild or sharp cheddar preferred. Season to delight your senses- try Creole, Mexican or Italian blend spices. Bake in a cast iron skillet at 350 degrees F until the eggs are set. You don't really need to cook the ingredients much because, presumably, they are leftovers and therefore just need to be heated up.  By the way, always add garlic powder to your frittata, regardless of what other seasonings are added, along with salt and pepper to taste. 

Bronze award winning leftover recipe is "mixed up soup".  The secret to making any soup is to begin with a sauté, carefully decide what oil base you want to use, my preference is usually to mix one tablespoon of butter with one tablespoon of olive oil (any kind of olive oil).  Then, sauté your selected leftovers, maybe even add a few fresh ingredients, especially chopped celery with leaves, if available, then add the broth- chicken or beef broth purchased in the Dollar Store is good.  Season to taste.  My secret ingredient for soup is to add one or two packets of Herb Ox no sodium bouillon.  This is a special ingredients I use in many many recipes.  

If you can't conjure up, fend or graze the ingredients to create a leftover Shepherd's Pie, or a Frittata or a Soup du jour, then you have no business keeping leftovers in your zoobecki.