Lately, the g/f and I have been out to eat with multiple people and/or couples at nice restaraunts and we’ve been surprised by the number of people who refuse to take their uneaten portions home. Especially when the beginning portions are so large and there is so much ordered initially, that there really is about 1/2 of everything leftover.
We love to take the leftovers home, but lately feel we’re in the minority. I’ll certainly never be one of those “I’m too good for leftovers”-types, and these dinner settings are in no way professional in nature (social only), so I don’t think this is an ediquette issue, or is it?
Personally, I’m not a fan of leftovers (except pasta). I find most foods don’t taste that great when they’re re-heated.
Also, they’re a pain. They make your car stinky, they could spill and make a mess. If you’re going out anywhere after dinner, you might be worried about them spoiling anyway.
I think a lot of the time, they’re just not worth the hassle.
Why not take home stuff that will end up in the bin otherwise?
My parents are retired and love going to a local Middle Eastern place because the meals are so big they get enough leftovers for two more meals if they drag others along. The staff obviously think nothing of it because they even have methods to package the leftovers neatly.
Not sure what you’re getting at here,** Boney**Are you asking if we somehow feel it’s gauche to take home leftovers? I don’t personally do it because experience tells me I’ll end up throwing it away anyway, but I see nothing wrong with it. I’ll encourage my dining companions to take mine if they have a dog and it’s something it can eat. One of my friends always take my leftovers home for her husband.
Are your friends giving off a “we’re too good for doggy bags” vibe? If so, they’re being pretensious and you should point and laugh at them
Unless it’s a formal occasion, my wife and I absolutely get leftovers – restaurant portions are sometimes simply too huge to finish, and I hate wasting food. Plus, lunch the next day is already done and packed in a handy container.
I’m in the same boat, sort of. My husband and I eat out sometime and always take the leftovers. Nothing’s better than having a restaurant meal at work the next day–that has already been paid for! I notice that a lot of friends leave food, and it doesn’t bother me that much. Sometimes they’ll offer us their leftovers (like a potato they didn’t touch, etc.). If I had friends who looked at me weird for taking leftovers, I’d ditch 'em. Same goes for friends who get all uppity about me requesting a separate check. I’ll pay for my meal, and you pay for yours–in what world is this unacceptable? Social situations are for fun, not for letting people look down their noses at me.
I generally take home leftovers when I think there’s a reasonable chance that I’ll actually eat them. I used to have just about any remaining morsel boxed up, but I found that these things usually languished in the depths of the refridgerator for a long time and ultimately became very nasty by the time they were discarded. Better to just never bring it home if I don’t think I’ll get to it.
As for leaving food left over, I used to have a certain amount of guilt about not finishing a meal or “wasting food” in some abstract sense. But lately I’ve realized that what I like about going out to eat, is not just the food, but the whole experience. If I order some chicken, but only end up eating half of it, sure I might be wasting it in the sense that that piece of sustenance could have fed a starving family elsewhere in the world. But in a more immediate sense, I ordered it, I payed for it, and I got what I wanted out of it. There’s no reason to feel guilty about it (IMHO).
Which is not to say that I’m throwing away food left and right, but I feel a lot happier not cramming every last bite in my mouth, or lugging it home to refridgerate just out of principle.
I do sometimes, I don’t sometimes. Depends on what it is, how good it was, how good it will keep, if we’re going anywhere bit straight home after dinner, and how much it stinks. I don’t want to smell thai food in my car for the next week and a half (and others smelling it long after I’ve become accustomed to the stink!)
We recently went out with friends for dinner, and only one of us didn’t box hers up. When she was asked why, she simply replied: “It just wasn’t that good.” I’m sure there are people who will say if it wasn’t that good, she should have complained, not settled for less, or whatever, but I know where she’s coming from. Sometimes a meal is good, great, even, for just that meal, but when you’re satisfied… eh. It was fine for that one meal, but the craving has passed, and it’s not something you’d want to eat again anytime soon. Too rich, sometimes, and a much bigger serving than you were expecting (I haven’t been to Claim Jumpers yet, but I’ll be sure to order something I would want as leftovers - I hear they’re HUGE). I don’t know anyone I could pawn my leftovers off on, so I’d leave it, too.
It isn’t that I’m too good for leftovers. It is just that I am not likely to eat them later. Why take stuff with me that I will then likely throw out a week later?
I’m puzzled by the way you phrase this. Although I will frequently take home the leftovers (if I plan to eat them later), I’ve never really been in a situation where I’ve felt the need to “refuse” to take anything home.
If I don’t feel like taking it with me, I just leave it on my plate and no one says anything. On occasion the server will ask if I would like a box, and I can politely decline, but it has never escalated to the point where I have been required to “refuse” to take leftovers home.
Funny, I find that pasta is the one thing that makes for an inedible leftover.
I always take home leftovers, and it’s rare that they eventually don’t get eaten – it’s an already prepared meal in a box, why would you let it rot in the refrigerator instead of taking it to the office the next day?
There do in fact seem to be some people who believe it to be gauche to take home food. I was once told by someone, “No, they know me here; I can’t take the leftovers home.” Weird.
Look at bringing home leftovers from a standard environmental view of recycling. The rule is “Reduce, reuse, recycle - and do it preferably in that order.” Reducing would be to try to order approximately as much as you will actually eat, and that would be the best thing from an ecological point of view. Reusing would be offering the food to someone else at the table or taking the food home. Remember, though, that when you take something home, it has to be put into a container, often a styrofoam container. If you usually throw the food out eventually since you don’t want to eat it or forget to eat it, that’s actually worse from an ecological view since you throw the food out whether it’s at home or at the restaurant, but if you take it home you’re also throwing out the container.
Look at other views on this. It’s not true that if you throw out the food, “people will starve in China” (or whatever place parents harass their children about these days). There is enough food being grown in the world to feed everyone. Any failure of this food to reach everyone is for economic reasons, not problems with the amount of food. If the argument is that you need the savings in money that you would get from eating the food for your next meal instead of buying something else, then perhaps you are too poor to be eating in restaurants.
Like a number of others, our answer is: it depends. Never with pasta dishes, because they are vile when reheated. But pizza, Chinese, halves of sandwiches and the like most definately come home. They usualy end up as my lunch later in the week.
You’re right, that wasn’t worded properly… there seems a tinge of defensiveness in some answers, that was not intended. I shouldn’t have used “refused” – that was dumb. I meant that it seems more and more the norm that there are some who simply aren’t interested in taking leftovers, no matter how good or bad they are, or how much is left – this being due to having dined with the same various people on multiple occasions, which has ultimately evolved into being offered the leftovers of others because we do always take ours (assuming there is enough to take).
WOOKINPANUB, you’ll mock those who give off the vibe that they’re too good for doggy bags, but at the same time, you say that your leftovers are only worthy of the consumption of a dog?
> There do in fact seem to be some people who believe it to be gauche to take
> home food.
Anybody who does anything (doesn’t bring food home, only eats hip food, only eats in the new hot restaurant, only wears fashionable clothes, only listens to currently popular music, or any other sort of slavish devotion to fashion) because they don’t want to “look gauche” has deep problems anyway.
Thanks for the painful memories. Why don’t you just give me a paper cut and drip lemon juice in it.
Signed,
Podkayne
Who just last week ordered a big meal with leftovers in mind, then wandered out of the restraunt forgetting a half a steak and three grilled shrimp. :smack: :smack: :smack:
[WOOKINPANUB, you’ll mock those who give off the vibe that they’re too good for doggy bags, but at the same time, you say that your leftovers are only worthy of the consumption of a dog?
[/QUOTE]
Hey, I said my friend’s husband could have some too!
