Skipping Christmas

I've been doing a good bit of skipping these days, or dumpster-diving as the Americans call it, somewhat less pleasantly. To those who have not tried it, I would highly recommend it. It's essentially reclaiming often-perfect food from going to waste, usually from a skip out the back of a supermarket or shop. I'm at home in Ireland currently and haven't really done much since I came home for Christmas. So, at 11pm on Christmas Eve I decided I must go and see what my hometown had to offer. I dragged my brother (and his car) along with me and soon hit the jackpot out the back of the big, evil, British supermarket chain. You know, the blue one, starts with a T. Anyway, this is what we took home, but we could have taken twenty times this amount and fed the entire town for Christmas dinner. But we didn't, we just took what we could use and carry.

      (I even found a chocolate bunny, but that didn't make it into the picture. )

Skipping is my favorite way to scavenge for food. It sure beats shopping, which I really hate and need money for. You don't have to queue, worry about prices, fair trade, ethics, animal treatment, the carbon footprint of your food - it's all rotting in a bin, so anything you take and use can only be positive. You're not supporting any unsustainable or cruel industries, in fact you're feeding off the waste they're causing. It's beautiful.

Though there is a stigma when people first hear about skipping. Like my brother said, 'You imagine someone eating a half-eaten pizza from a dirty bin,' like in those (American) movies. But it's really not like that at all. Often supermarkets are quite meticulous in their binning of foods, double- and triple-bagging goods. Heaven forbid, even the bin should be a mess. And everything's wrapped in plastic these days, which is quite convenient. Even if you don't eat the food you take from the skip, you can compost it and recycle the packaging.

My favorite bit of it all is probably creatively using up the food. It's like 'Ready, Steady, Cook'. Work with the ingredients you've got. In fact, I'm sure that could be a good show: 'Ready, Steady, Skip'. Someone may have suggested that to me before (Webby, was it you?). If no one claims it I'll take full credit for the idea.

My next few entries will concern using these ingredients to make some creative veggie dishes (and even the Christmas hams were used up on the day by the non-veggies in the house). More to come!

- Dara