Leftovers (lovingly termed "LO")

In our house, food is rarely, if ever wasted. It is served, reheated and served again, recycled into other dishes, anything but thrown away, unless it is past the point of no return. I inventory the fridge often enough so that doesn't happen often. And I've been known to eat a questionable food item or two in my day (I know I'm not alone, bloggers!).

Without the help of a shrink, I know that I completely take after my father in this regard. And we both take after the mother and father of my father. My parents were never big 'fighters' but I do recall some particularly bad arguments that sounded like:
Mom: But it's spoiled/old/been served 3 nights already/nobody likes it
Dad (Israeli accent): Don't trow nothing away!!! I will eat it, don't worry.

The night my father discovered that several cans had been shoved to the back of the pantry to the point of puffed-out botulistic grossness, and had to be tossed out en masse, stands out as the one moment when I felt like my happy, mostly-normal family was really in jeopardy. Thankfullly, we worked it out. And began rotating our food more carefully, which is a habit I still keep up.

I know my father is like this about food because this is what he saw at home, growing up in a fledgling, young state of Israel, with parents, of blessed memory, who survived the concentration camps. I know that food, preparing it, talking about it, describing it, hoarding it, and buying it, pretty much covers the bulk of my grandparents' hobbies. I remember that on his return from visiting Israel during the last few years of my grandfather's life, he told us about the cabinets full of flour and sugar that my grandfather kept, and how he was torn between needing to explain to my grandfather that it was infested with worms and had to be tossed, and not having the heart to do it.

RaggedyDad is "very good" about eating leftovers, as far as husbands go. I know that sounds arcane, but there are some people I know who really dislike leftovers, and put up a fuss. And they're usually the husbands, although exceptions abound. I joke around with him that our leftovers are probably way better than the quality of fresh food available in Russia when he was growing up there, but in truth, his family lived under fairly good circumstances as well as food goes.

Ann likes to ask me if we're going to have leftOVERS (emphasis on second syllable.) and doesn't seem to mind at this age. Andy will eat anything that's not moving.

Leftovers on my mind.