What do you do with leftovers?

Do you take the leftover pieces of pizza home? Photo / 123RF

It was my daughter's 12th birthday and we'd been allowed to bring in a cake to share for dessert at Havelock North's friendly Thai restaurant. The six of us managed to eat only half of it. The maître d' brought us the box the cake had arrived in case we wanted to take it away.

"You take the rest of it home," said the person who had purchased the cake. I did a double take. Say what now? I hadn't even had a slice for dessert. Why would I want to take it away with me? So many scenarios flashed through my mind. Only one of them involved losing all willpower, scooping up the remains of the cake with my bare hands and shovelling it into my mouth.

Anyway, knowing my luck, the cake would spill out onto the pavement as we walked down the street. Another concern was how to dispose of the cumbersome container. Did the plastic insert within its cardboard top mean it would need to go in the rubbish rather than the recycling? It was complicated.

Most importantly, I knew what happened to leftovers at our place. They are stored for a few days in the fridge before being thrown out. Consequently, my policy for the last 15 years has been to eschew leftovers. In my experience, disposing of uneaten food right away saves needless double handling. It is even good for the environment, reducing usage of cling-film and also saving water by not having to clean the containers.

My preference is to not produce leftovers in the first instance. I cook dinner most nights and have become expert in making just the right amount for whoever needs feeding. I am not one for over-catering. It seems wasteful to make more than you actually need. But if scraps of food do remain, I get rid of them immediately.

Rejecting leftovers is, of course, a luxury available only to people without food supply issues. Not having to worry about where my next meal comes from allows me to turn up my nose at such uneaten delicacies as half a New World chocolate cake.

I've not taken home uneaten food from a restaurant before either. Wait-staff at Lone Star Newmarket routinely offer to wrap up leftovers to take away. It's nice of them to ask but it strikes me as counterintuitive. If we didn't eat it when it was freshly cooked and surely at its most appetising we're unlikely to crave it at a later date.

Citing health and safety issues, some city restaurants (Clooney and those in the Langham Hotel) have reportedly banned doggy bags. Others (the Crab Shack, Depot, Euro and Federal Delicatessen) happily pack up leftovers. One chef thinks the term "gourmet take-home leftover pack" is preferable to "doggy bag".

Last November a dining companion asked me if I'd mind if she took home leftover crayfish balls from Baduzzi. She explained to me that because her father had experienced shortages in the war, she'd been brought up to not waste food.

I have no problem with doggy bags if people are able to put food to later use. Leftovers just aren't my bag. Mind you, I could almost make an exception for those crayfish balls - and, of course, pizza. A slice of fridge-cold leftover pizza for breakfast is sometimes just what the doctor ordered.