On Beethoven’s third birthday in 1773, demonstrators irrelevantly threw an entire ship’s cargo of tea into the Boston Harbor. It was a really big deal at the time, because it made the lobsters all zippy, and ultimately culminated in the American Revolution. The colonists didn’t want to pay taxes to a parliament overseas they had no control over or representation in. Those were simpler times. These days people just admit they don’t want to pay taxes from governments they did elect.
I have a large stash of tea on a high shelf in a cupboard. I don’t drink tea, but apparently every year or so I get the notion I should have a variety on hand for people who do. They haven’t shown up yet. If anyone does drop by with a hankering for fifteen-year-old dead leaves, they’ll be all set. Because I won’t throw them out.
In general I seem to have an ethic instilled in me early, that one is not supposed to waste things. You don’t keep a light on in an unoccupied room. You don’t stand in front of the refrigerator with the door open. Get in, get out. You definitely don’t waste food.
That wasn’t much trouble in my family. Dad didn’t dish out too much of anything on the plate, small islands with plenty of real estate separating them, but we were expected to eat it all, and we didn’t have a dog. There were some difficult moments and protracted meals involving beets and lima beans but those were few and far between.
Even now I will store tiny amounts of leftovers in the refrigerator and not throw them out until I can’t tell if they’re meat or cake. Even then they’ll go to the back row first just in case something clears up. Eventually I realize if I can’t tell what it is, it’s time to let it go, or it will be in another year.
But I eat everything on my plate. Always. That was the rule. There won’t be a grain of rice left. Of course, I like rice. But this feels like a compulsion. Hunger doesn’t have anything to do with it. Last year I ordered a Reuben sandwich at an establishment known for good food. It was wretched. It was slimy. The meat was rubbery and gray. It looked like porpoise skin with phlegm sauce. I soldiered through 3/4 of it before realizing people leave portions on their plates all the time, especially at restaurants. I believe it is the first time I have ever done so.
So you can imagine my dismay when we were walking in the neighborhood and found some people pumping fresh beer out of three kegs and into the storm sewer. I gasped audibly. The people did look unhappy about it. “We have to return the kegs empty,” they said. “It was for a non-profit fundraiser and we just couldn’t drink it all.” If we had a growler, they said, we were welcome to take some home.
I hesitated. We do have a growler or two somewhere, and I’m not so precious that I’ve never had a beer before noon, but I’ve been cutting down. Still: this was a scene that hurt the heart.
I’m not sure why I think all that beer should take a short trip through someone’s personal tubing before going down the sewer. But I do. It’s probably not exactly what Mom and Dad were trying to teach me, but there you go.
Good grief, at least irrigate the garden with it, moisten the compost pile, something. Of course it hasn’t rained here since….Memorial Day? So irrigating things is on my mind.
Ceci
What would beer do to plants? I know it kills slugs, probably wouldn’t make any small animals too happy.
I think it would make many small animals too happy!
If you look at the photos, you’ll see the pavement is damp. We’re not in drought country here, are blessed with rain…traditionally, and I only hope it keeps up.
Meatcake! My favorite! So, have you read up on or heard David Sedaris’s bit about his food-hoarding dad? well worth tracking down. It’s on Esquire’s site – the man who mistook his hat for a meal.
David Sedaris is one of my favorite writers! I don’t care for his fiction, but when he writes about his life… OMG! I laugh so hard I cry!
That sounds familiar. I’ll look it up again. And does David Sedaris write fiction? I thought it was all about his life. I live for his Billie Holliday takes.
He wrote a couple short works of fiction, but they certainly weren’t as well known as his non-fiction essays.
Oh, gawd. You and I would be lying in the gutter together. Who needs a growler when there’s an emergency like that?
Lying in the gutter with a funnel?
A crime against Nature and all Mankind!! I understand the need to empty the kegs, but why not pour it into other containers or give it away? I thought Portlanders were ‘woke’.
A couple kegs is a lot of containers. And it gets flat fast. Believe me, these citizens were plenty unhappy about the circumstance.
Paul is a “clean plate” kind of guy. When he’s done eating, it looks like his plate has already been washed… or at least licked by a very thorough dog. I usually leave a little on my plate. If I’m full, I stop eating. I’ve gotten around this by dishing out the food on the plates myself — his a nice portion, mine somewhat smaller. I also pack a meal for him to take to work the next day, before I even dish things out. He works as a bartender at a restaurant, so he has access to food. But a steady diet of restaurant food is not good for you. For one thing, the portions are HUGE! Another thing is that they use more salt and sugar than one might use oneself.
Even then, sometimes I am full. But we have a compost pile in the back, so nothing is “wasted”… just turned into soil. The birds, squirrels, and raccoons also like the compost pile. Just this morning, I saw a squirrel gnawing on an avocado pit — not very successfully — and another squirrel chase him around to get at the pit. The first squirrel didn’t drop it, so it must have tasted good to him. Sometimes we put leavings out on our deck table for the birds and squirrels. They are so used to this that they check it every day, just in case. If food is eaten by these creatures, it is not wasted. And, Murr! You have CROWS! They will eat almost anything! Except maybe the meatcake. Crows have standards, dude!
I used to leave uneaten bread out for the birds. Then the rats found it.
Thankfully, we don’t have rats around here. Just mice, and we managed to rid ourselves of an infestation of them by plugging in ultrasonic devices that they can hear but neither we nor our parrots can. (Rodent can hear at a MUCH higher frequency than either humans or most of their pets.) Occasionally, a mouse will enter our home, hold his ears with his paws, and say, “Good god! What is that awful constant screeching?!” Then he promptly exits the way he came in. Most people think that these devices don’t work because they don’t put enough of them in each room. Yes, they are pricey. But a LOT cheaper than having a pest control service come out, or having EVERY freakin’ hole filled in in a hundred year old home.
Did I say I wasted food? I do have a working compost pile for leek tops and orange peels and egg shells and like that there, but my plate never has anything left on it but bacteria. Even if I have to go a long way past being full to do it.
I wouldn’t have tasted more than one bite of that disgusting Reuben sandwich. I can understand wanting to finish if the food is tasty, but I don’t always clean my plate either. When we were little we had to if we wanted dessert, and I remember feeling uncomfortably full by the time the ice cream got dished out. I never made my own kids finish their plates, though they often did anyway. Leftovers in my fridge don’t stay more than a week, I toss things on rubbish collection day.
“Meat or cake?” I believe that’s from George Carlin.
And “cake or death” is from Eddie Izzard!
I have learned, when dining out, that it is a good idea to order something that reheats well or tastes as good on day two. I never eat a full restaurant meal. And the expense bothers me less when it’s two meals.
OMG. That Reuben sounded pretty dang gross. On occasion, our rocket-scientist-nerd father would gross us out at a restaurant by ordering something extreme and making a show of eating it. “Trout cheeks! They’re the BEST!” he’d say before extracting…something…from the general face area of the dead fish laying on his plate. My sister took a photo of him with a straw sucking up the “juice” from a huge bowl of mussels. He would severely cross-examine the waiter about the make-up of the different beers that were available — while we cringed — and end by sadly ordering a martini.
Oh, miss you, Pop — more than you know.
This reminded me of Friday afternoon at the scene shop.
A keg would show up around 3. That stopped work and the stagehands would put down their hammers pick up their solo cups and start working on the beer.
Even if there were only 5 or 6 of us no one left unless it was to return the empty keg.
I question the wisdom of sending it down the storm sewer. At least around these parts, the storm sewer leads directly to a river. As much as some people do like beer, it is a pollutant when in the wrong place.
Ah socks and sandals. Be still my heart. I moved from the upper midwest to Los Angeles in 1977 right after college (have since returned). Although there were many aha moments for this sheltered midwestern girl I will always remember the first time I met my sock/sandal clad Berkeley coworker. It was shock and awe followed by shameless imitation. I still wear them, but until I saw this picture can’t remember the last time I have thought or cared about any of this. Thanks for resurrecting that 22 yo. Still in there somewhere. I should probably drink more beer.