The day after Christmas when we get to enjoy the fruits of yesterday’s labour and feast on the greatest gift of the season: leftovers. Every year I thank Santa for a fridge full of cooked meat and veg (and M&S trifle), which I “ready steady cook” into exciting new dishes, from Cajun rice stew to ham and sauerkraut croques. But not everyone feels the same. While some see holiday leftovers and think possibility, others see an albatross. American food writer Tamar Adler is the author of An Everlasting Meal (Swift) and The Everlasting Meal Cookbook: Leftovers A to Z (Scribner). She considers it her “life’s work” to bring people round to the potential of leftover cooking. To those who delight in leftovers only at Thanksgiving and Christmas, she asks: why can’t this be a model for sustainable cooking the rest of the year? Why don’t we generate extra to make into new dishes as a matter of course? In other words, leftovers can be liberating.
