The Leftover Gospel
I have vivid visual memories of fridges, which is surprising because I have very few visual memories at all. There’s comfort in the dim light of a fridge, just enough to scan the shelves and locate containers and jars full of leftovers and excess. Some things last better than others. I like that about them. I like things that last.
A refrigerator, or ref as it's known to my in-laws, serves as the archivist. The loud buzzing at night is a sign of life. The conclave of culinary history in action.
There’s safety in leftovers, though I didn’t always recognize it. When someone tells me they don’t eat leftovers, I’m curious how they handle food that’s been on shelves for months. The modern supermarket is nothing if not a vacuum of long-lasting leftovers. If you don't consider pre-cooked, fully processed meals a form of leftover, you are not picky, you are spoiled.
My mother’s fridge was always full of things covered in cling film, marked with capital letters telling us what was inside or who it was for. My father’s fridge was neat, filled with jars of unique and interesting things. I once ate an entire jar of artichoke hearts and got sick. An awakening.
My first fridge was second-hand and could hold two boxes of wine and a pot of pasta. In my 20s, I stood in front of a single-door fridge, opening margarine tubs looking for pasta but finding leftover porridge, rice, and often wilted salads. Sometimes takeout. Often braai meat from Sunday lunches. I see a younger version of myself, the kitchen dark but lit by the tiny yellow light in the corner of the fridge, fumbling to lift the lid off a metal container full of leftover meat. The fat hardened and white around the edges of the wors, like seafoam left on the shore. Somehow the tjops grew tender, and oftentimes there were signs of other visitors on the leftover steak, tiny rips in the cold meat indicating that others had this plan, when they too could not sleep. They sought the light in the fridge.
The fridge in my apartment in Korea was a bar fridge. I spent days crying about it. I didn’t need more space, just more fridge. I’ve since gotten a new one, and it’s full of leftovers. My mother-in-law has a brand-new fridge, big and full of Yakult, kalamansi, cake, and bags of ice. Each of these fridges are full of moments, all kept in tupperware containers. On and off brand.
Coming from a large family meant cooking was never done for one person. As a result, I don’t think I know how. The effect of this on my pant size is evident. That, combined with living alone, simply means: leftovers. It helps that many people in my city are in the same situation, living alone. I believe this has led me to stumbling into a peculiar form of communion. Leftovers, the daily bread of the solitary, finding its way between the isolated and the plenty. Passed hand to unseen hand, the material echo of the physical need made spiritual. My Tupperware, marked with my name as my mother instilled in me, returns to me filled by the generosity of a person, a stranger to me, a testament to the unseen current that connects us. The fact remains, we all need to eat, so take the leftovers.
The archive of the fridge is home to collections stored in containers, tupperwares, and jars. Through acts of kindness and tenderness, those tomes travel.
Growing up, I never noticed food being given as a gift. I remember thinking my brother asking my grandparents for a watermelon for Christmas was ridiculous. Now it’s one of those endearing memories. He understood the concept of gifting long before I did. Now, living in Asia, I know that food is the ultimate gift. A jar of pickles. A bag of oranges. Grapes in a ziplock. Or your friend who lives downstairs messaging at 10 p.m. to tell you she left food in a tupperware outside your door because they made too much. Your boss leaving a bag full of pastries on your desk. It's your birthday. Enjoy them.
These are signs of life. And when you stand in the holy glow of the fridge light, you are witness to those moments. Sunday’s lunch is Monday’s manna. I wonder if these noodles are still good, so with a bit of heat and chili oil a modern miracle unfolds. I don’t remember when I made this adobo, but it smells fine swimming in the consecrated oils it was cooked in. And as if guided by unseen hands you make fresh lumpia from three-day-old chicken. These are moments spent with people, a pilgrimage where the finish line is satisfaction. And everyone gets to participate.
Tupperware is proof. Of what came before. Of who was thinking of you. Of what’s still good. It doesn’t matter if it’s scratched or stained. It doesn’t even matter if it matches. It just matters that it’s full. And that someone thought you might need it. And sometimes you thought someone else, or yourself, might want it. Tupperwares full of shared and solo meals, tiny bits of cake given into loved hands after parties, slices of quiche wrapped in tin foil shoved into open car windows as people stand waving goodbye, leftovers in styrofoam from afternoons spent in restaurants, debating the necessity of employment. Sometimes these are jars full of sauce. We made too much. I have sun-dried orange peels because I went through an orange phase as winter ended. Take some. Make kulfi or tea. Tupperware containers, in all their shapes, are physical representations of life lived. The leftovers can only be called that because they belonged to something else first. And at some point, some of the Fish and Bread from the Bible must have become leftovers themselves. It is what we do with the excess after the miracle that is the true measure of our shared values.
If a plate is to a chef what a canvas is to an artist, then the tupperware is the canvas of the homecook. And honestly, we can’t all spend hours making mousse from sea foam. Some of us have reports due.
I look over the containers that make up the content of my fridge as I pick something for dinner, buying myself time to read. No cooking means no cleaning. Leftovers are second chances, and if food can have those, maybe we can too.