Pursuits
Living in the United States of Food Waste
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It’s Sunday morning and I’m rummaging through our refrigerator for items we haven’t finished, tossing everything—cold cuts, cheese, vegetables, fruit, bread, tomato sauce, yogurt, and various unidentifiable leftovers. This is my weekly routine before heading to the supermarket. The stuffed shells prepared a few days earlier—mostly uneaten: out, too.
It’s usually at this time I hear my father’s voice, chiding his kids for being picky eaters. “You’re lucky,” he’d say, “you don’t know what it’s like to go hungry.” Hunger was a constant childhood companion, following him and his brothers and sisters from Europe to America.