Definition, use, and examples of the word leftovers.
For further reading, check out,“What to do with Leftover Food” from Choose to Reuse, a program of Hennepin County, Minnesota.
Hosted by Jenn de la Vega
Research by Alicia Book
Videos edited by Chris De Pew
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I’m Jenn de la Vega and this is your culinary word of the day.
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Today’s word is leftovers.
It is spelled...L-E-F-T-O-V-E-R-S
According to Vocabulary.com:
Leftovers is a “Noun, food remaining from a previous meal.”
“Leftovers is most often used to describe extra food that gets saved and eaten later. “
It originates from an 1890 compound word from left and over. The noun of leftovers in the context of "excess food after a meal" (especially if re-served later) is from 1878; in this sense from Old English.
Helen Veit writes for The Atlantic:
“Leftovers hadn’t been a joke to earlier generations of Americans. In the 19th century, in fact, Americans had rarely talked about leftovers as a discrete category of food at all.
Cookbook authors then occasionally discussed “fragments” or “réchauffés,” but using up leftover food was so fundamental to everyday cooking and eating that most people didn’t have a special name for it. Breakfast was usually a meal of leftovers, the meat or beans or pie (or anything, really) left from the day before. Simmering stockpots were crucial catch-alls for kitchen scraps. Techniques like pickling, potting, smoking, and salting defined 19th-century cuisine because, before reliable refrigeration, cooking and food preservation were barely distinguishable tasks. Americans turned leftover milk into an array of longer-lived dairy products, and they drank whiskey and hard cider by the gallon in part because alcohol kept leftover grains and fruits edible long after they were in season. Foods that weren’t preserved had to be eaten quickly.”
The USDA, Food Safety and Inspection Service shares some handy tips:
The first step in having safe leftovers is cooking the food safely. Use a food thermometer to make sure that the food is cooked to a safe, minimum internal temperature. [...]
Cover leftovers, wrap them in airtight packaging, or seal them in storage containers. These practices help keep bacteria out, retain moisture, and prevent leftovers from picking up odors from other food in the refrigerator. Immediately refrigerate or freeze the wrapped leftovers for rapid cooling. [...]
Safe ways to thaw leftovers include the refrigerator, cold water and the microwave oven. Refrigerator thawing takes the longest but the leftovers stay safe the entire time. After thawing, the food should be used within 3 to 4 days or can be refrozen [only once more].
It is safe to reheat frozen leftovers without thawing, either in a saucepan or microwave (in the case of a soup or stew) or in the oven or microwave (for example, casseroles and combination meals). [...]
When reheating leftovers, be sure they reach 165° F as measured with a food thermometer. Reheat sauces, soups and gravies by bringing them to a rolling boil. Cover leftovers to reheat. This retains moisture and ensures that food will heat all the way through [...]
Sometimes there are leftover "leftovers." It is safe to refreeze any food remaining after reheating previously frozen leftovers to the safe temperature of 165° F.
If a large container of leftovers was frozen and only a portion of it is needed, it is safe to thaw the leftovers in the refrigerator, remove the needed portion and refreeze the remainder of the thawed leftovers without reheating it.”
Recipe Tips shares more advice:
“If leftovers are to be kept for future use, they should be stored in a refrigerator or freezer in order to keep the foods from becoming unsafe for consumption. After foods have been prepared with heat and are to be stored as leftovers, it is necessary to reduce the temperature of the leftovers as quickly as possible. [...]
Freezing foods (storing at 0ºF or below) enables the leftovers to be kept for considerably longer periods of time ranging from one to several months after which they begin to deteriorate in flavor and texture. When freezing foods, make sure they are wrapped or stored in airtight containers for best results. After they are thawed, they should be consumed within 2 to 3 days. [...]
Before using leftovers, examine the food for any harmful changes. Common occurrences such as color changes (browning or whitening), excess slime, drying out, cracking, ice crystal formations, mold, dissolving fluids, and rancid odors are all indications a harmful change may have occurred requiring disposal of the food.
For further reading, check out,“What to do with Leftover Food” from Choose to Reuse, a program of Hennepin County Minnesota.
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I’m your host Jenn de la Vega with research producer Alicia Book and this has been your culinary word of the day.
Next time on Culinary Word of the day, an extended episode about an ingredient as old as the Earth.
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