DYSON COLUMN: Appreciating, and not wasting, the food that we have

I’ve never been truly hungry or in a position where I wasn’t sure where my next meal was coming from—and for that I am grateful.

But I have spent 30 years with someone who knows what that’s like, and my companion, Lou, regularly reminds me that once you’ve been hungry, you never forget it. Every time he says that, I have a vision of Scarlett O’Hara from “Gone With The Wind,” clutching a handful of dirt and vowing she’ll never be hungry again.

Lou spent much of his childhood in New York City orphanages, and when he aged out as an older teen, he lived alone and supported himself on the mean streets of Brooklyn before joining the Marine Corps. There were times he only had a few coins in his pocket and scrimped together enough to buy potato salad. He’s kept a sentimental attachment to the dish all these years and could live off it, provided there were some chicken legs and green beans on the side.

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Or any other main dish, for that matter. He’s definitely a meat-and-potatoes kind of guy and there’s not an entrée that he wouldn’t pair with potato salad. We recently got some amazing spiced shrimp, which I ate with slices of homegrown tomatoes and cucumbers with ranch dressing. You can guess what was on Lou’s plate.

As we’ve both gotten older, I’ve certainly appreciated his perspective as well as his penchant for not wasting. Many times, I’ve been ready to toss out a scrap of something in the refrigerator and he claims it. He must have a cast iron stomach, because he’s eaten things that looked well past their use-by date to me.

Lou also mixes together items that have no business co-mingling, like half a cup of homemade vegetable soup with remnants of a chicken-spinach-pasta casserole. In the past, I all but lost my lunch at the mere mention of his combinations because, as a child, I wouldn’t even let the juice from one food seep onto another on my plate.

But over the years, my culinary tastes have changed while my own sense of frugality has ramped up a few notches, especially as grocery prices have soared. We’ve had “eat-all-the-leftovers” meals that tossed together an assortment of proteins, carbs and vegetables into one plate or bowl—and as reluctant as I am to admit it, some tasted pretty good.

During nightly phone calls with my mother, I tell her what we had for dinner when we’re on a quest to clean out the fridge and even she—a child of the Great Depression—is somewhat taken aback.

I’ve worked with people who turn up their noses at leftovers or wouldn’t consider bringing home a restaurant to-go box. A few years ago, we were at a nice restaurant at the Outer Banks in North Carolina and a large group was across the table from us. An older woman ordered the pricey crab cake dinner but ate only one of the two cakes on her plate.

When the waitress asked if she wanted to take the other one with her, she said, no, she didn’t have room for it.

I assumed that meant she was staying in a hotel that either didn’t have a fridge or one that too small for a box that size. That’s a dilemma, for sure. But I’ll be darned if I would have eaten mashed potatoes and the vegetable of the day and let a crab cake go to waste.

But then, we’re fortunate enough to be able to rent a house while at the beach. We’re sure to stock its fridge with any and all leftovers from takeout meals we get while there. Whatever remains at the end of the stay either will be eaten on our last night there—or packed up in the cooler and brought home.