Observations from Eating Out

Waste not, what not!

I love people-watching at restaurants. From the comfort of my assigned table, I get to see who’s giving love a try and which couples should have ended the experiments many meals ago. I notice when the impatient wreak havoc on the order and flow of dining out, when the too-kind patron begrudgingly accepts wronged dishes, and which families find total peace sitting together in total silence.¹ One of the more interesting things, at least to me, is when people order moderately expensive meals, eat somewhere around 30 to 50% of the meal, and let the busser come by to pick and dispose of the food as if taking things to-go were forbidden in the establishment. Being raised the way I was, I never shied from asking for a container, and nor should they, but then again, not everyone has the same mother.

Growing up, I was not rich or comfortable (not now either), but I certainly wasn’t struggling. I have never in my life tasted caviar, but we always had cable. The middle-class designation doesn’t seem to describe our family’s situation either. There’s never been a non-pre-owned car in our driveway. (Some refer to these kinds of vehicles as “new”). I think I knew how fortunate I was to have what I did have, but I was persistently mindful of what I wanted and what others needed.

That being said, my mother always used to preach, and still does to my little brother, the need to finish meals in their entirety. When eating rice dishes, which was nearly every day, there were many occasions when my mother would tell us that leaving behind grains of rice was “inappropriate” in her Buddhist view of the world. I doubt the Dalai Lama is that stringent on fried rice consumption. Looking back on it, I guess the message revolved around us always having rice, so the least we could do was to make sure we were entirely consuming that privilege. I can imagine many days in my mother’s childhood when a warm bowl of rice appeared to her as a delicacy, compared to our understanding of it as a routine part of our cuisine.

Whenever I see someone throwing away a dinner that could have been converted into the following day’s lunch, I am reminded of this lesson. My mother's words came to the forefront once more tonight when I noticed an older couple at a Thai restaurant² enjoying a sampler’s portion of two full dishes and then waving the server down to take the rest to Waste Management. For what it’s worth, they did decide to finish with some sticky mango rice, but I think most of that ended up where the pad Thai went. I signaled to my mother, who was sitting in front of me, to look at the server taking the dishes away, remarking, “That table barely had any of their food.” As if a poetic spirit swept into her, my mother pointed at my seemingly finished appetizer dish and alerted me to some renegade rice grains. “Why don’t you finish yours?” she said. This year, I’ll start minding my business at these kinds of establishments.

1. It’s even better when all members are on their phones!

2. This couple should have given up years ago, ideally around 1998.