Eating up leftovers

It’s confession time.  I enjoy having people over, cooking for them…but sometimes I secretly think that the best bit about parties is eating up the leftovers afterwards.

The fact that this comes shortly before going away for Christmas means that there are all sorts of plans for how to use things up in a pleasing manner.  It must rank reasonably high in my subconscious, as that was what I woke up thinking about, while trying hard to wake up enough to get up and see if I had remembered the contents of the fridge accurately…

Part of the thing with parties that makes this satisfying is where you have a party with different people bringing different things.  Leftovers – with unplanned ingredients!  It’s fairly close to Ready Steady Cook, but without the inconvenience of a studio audience.

To be honest, what was also exciting was seeing how well all the different things went together last night.  Nibbles, mini things on french bread, a big vat of soup…I mention this as I am reminded of a similar party a few years ago where we decided we would all bring Christmas things from different countries – or at any rate, a dish relating to a particular country.

The only difficulty was that we had all thought about dishes containing potato, or so it seemed by what was produced.  For one guest, fairly heavily pregnant at the time, this meant effectively eating a five course meal where every course included potato.  Not great if you are working on a smaller stomach, and having difficulty digesting things…

But the second joy of leftovers is the potential to do things you might not normally do, such have coffee and cake for breakfast.  (To be honest, cake for breakfast is such an exciting prospect that it’s just as well I don’t do this too often.)

You can equally have things that you might normally eat – such as soup at lunchtime – but with someone else’s take on what that should be.  (Three cheers for spiced parsnip soup, by the way.)

So hurrah for parties.  And leftovers.  In this day and age, in the West, we have lost the significance of feasting, because we are unused to the alternative – or unwilling to go there.  We have to get our joy of providence through other means.  Leftovers might just be it.