A summary of what Elinor Simek, a senior at Colgate University, learned in her internship for Jacquie Ottman. Elinor helped Jacquie with her upcoming book. This book will focus on the social and cultural history of leftovers, while also providing strategies for reducing food waste by properly managing our leftovers.

1. A Brief History
of Leftovers in
the U.S.
Elinor Simek
Colgate ‘21
August 2020

2. Introduction
During the summer of 2020 I interned with Jacquie Ottman, the founder of J.
Ottman Consulting, Inc., which provides guidance to governments, industries, and
not-for-profits in sustainable practices, particularly reducing waste. As an intern, I
conducted research for her upcoming book on leftovers. This book’s goal is to
inspire and motivate people to appreciate and use their leftovers, thus diminishing
food waste.
I researched three topics in particular for the book:
1. The ways in which other cultures and traditions view and manage leftovers
2. The ways in which restaurants and chefs view and manage leftovers
3. The history of how leftovers were perceived and used in the United States
The following presentation focuses on the keys findings from the last of these
topics. Much of this information comes from food historian Helen Veit’s article “An
Economic History of Leftovers”, The Atlantic, October 7 2015.

3. 19th Century: No Name for Leftovers
● Rarely talked about as a separate
category of food because they
were so essential to everyday
cooking and eating
● Because this was before
refrigeration, food preservation
and cooking were practically
synonymous
Preserving Food

4. 19th Century: No Name for Leftovers
● Breakfast was often scraps from the previous night’s dinner
● Dinner remains went into the next day’s stockpot, crucial catch-alls for
scraps

5. 1900s: Refrigeration Creates Term “Left-overs”
● Iceboxes became common in homes, soon followed by
refrigerators, generating a huge shift in American cuisine
○ Home preservation methods largely disappeared from
daily use in a single generation
● Refrigeration allowed the same meal to reappear in nearly
the same form for the first time in history
● With this, the term “left-overs” is coined
○ One of first cookbooks devoted to leftovers, 1910
Left-Over Foods and How to Use Them, was
commissioned by a refrigerator company (looking to
substantiate the cost of their innovation.)

6. 1910s: Eating Leftovers Was a Sign of Wealth
● American families spent about 40% of their income on food
● Food insecurity, along with diseases of malnutrition, plagued
those in poverty at this time
● Lower-class families did not have the luxury of food uneaten
between meals as middle-class and wealthy Americans did, so
having leftovers and an icebox became status symbols in this era

7. 1910s: Eating Leftovers Was a Patriotism
● Moral and patriotic component to leftovers because of World War I
○ Food conservation campaign in U.S. told housewives to use up
every crumb by making casseroles and goulashes

8. 1920s: Lapse in Concern for Leftovers as
Economy Boomed
● Food prices fell and home refrigerators became ubiquitous, making
leftovers common among all classes, and thus not a symbol of wealth
anymore
● Wealthy people started to emphasize not eating leftovers as a show of
their status instead

9. 1930s: The Great Depression
● Wasting food viewed as anti-social
● Advice for cooking economically
and using up leftovers became
common in newspapers, radio
broadcasts, like ones sponsored
by the U.S. Department of
Agriculture, and in cookbooks, like
The Joy of Cooking
General Electric's "The Silent Hostess:
Treasure Book," 1932

10. 1930s: The Great Depression
● Irma Rombauer writes The Joy of
Cooking after losing her fortune in
the 1929 crash (and her husband’s
subsequent suicide)
○ Looking for a way to get by, she decided
to write a cookbook despite her lack of
cooking skill
○ The original 1931 edition devotes a lot of
space to repurposing leftovers

11. 1930s: The Great Depression
● Staples for Using Leftovers
○ Vegetable Liquor: water from
boiling vegetables saved to use
in soups and sauces
○ White sauce: combination of
condensed milk, butter, salt,
flour, and water used to
camouflage old food

12. 1930s: The Great Depression
○ Gelatin, commercially available and promoted to home cooks, allowed
for combinations of available ingredients “into a jiggly blob”
○ Casseroles became a staple of Great Depression

13. 1930s-1950s: The Golden Age of Leftovers
● In 1941, American families spent 19%
of their income on food
● The Great Depression ushered in the
Golden Age of Leftovers and World
War II sustained it
○ It was inspired by the family
budget, but came to have
aesthetic value as well
1940 Booklet

14. 1930s-1950s: The Golden Age of Leftovers
● Value found in the “art” of transforming of leftovers
○ Rather than just reheating, cooks proved their skill by
transforming leftovers: hidden in pot pies, blanketed in crepes,
and chopped up and molded into meatloaf
● Essentially, using leftovers in this time was seen as a creative outlet,
a show of cooking skill, a way to save money, and most importantly,
a pleasurable activity

15. 1960s-Today: Leftovers Fall Out of Favor
● In the 1960’s, incomes rose and agriculture became more
productive, pushing thrift out of favor
○ Poor Americans were less desperate for calories than they
had ever been
Rise of
Fast,
Cheap
Food

16. 1960s-Today: Leftovers Fall Out of Favor
● No longer a sign of household
abundance, more of an annoyance
○ All the work that went into
reincarnating leftovers seemed a
waste of time when food was cheap
○ Don’t bother, a cookbook author
advised readers: “When in doubt,
throw it out.”
○ The best way to serve them, a joke
went, was to somebody else

17. 1960s-Today: Leftovers Fall Out of Favor
● In 2014, American families spent
9.7% of their income on food,
less than any people in the
history of the world
Modern American Food: Abundant & Cheap

18. Today into Future
● However, throwing out leftovers has come to be seen as unaffordable in other
ways: environment, farm/factory worker treatment, animal treatment, and
hunger
● Composting has gained traction as a way to avoid dumping food in the landfill,
yet leftovers are still often disregarded

19. Today into Future
● But the pandemic may be changing that.....
○ More time to cook at home and experiment with leftover food
○ Food shortages in supermarkets and long lines at food banks have
generated a new interest in leftovers and not wasting food
○ New attention in the media
■ Celebrity chefs are teaching their audiences how to use their
leftovers
■ Articles in local newspapers by local food writers
■ Social media hashtag #PandemicCooking

20. Today into Future
Jamie Oliver’s Leftover Turkey Sandwich
#PandemicCooking
Food Bank Lines in Response to Covid-19

21. About Elinor Simek
Elinor is from New York and is a current senior at Colgate university. She is
majoring in Biology and double minoring in Environmental Studies and Peace and
Conflict Studies.
On campus, Elinor is a member of Division I Women’s Tennis team, and she also
tutors at local elementary schools and is a facilitator for the One Love Foundation.
Elinor has held a lifelong passion for the environment, from the Green Team in
high school to this past summer interning for J. Ottman Consulting. She
appreciates that she was able to work with Jacquie for a cause that she believes
in.

22. Bibliography
An Economic History of Leftovers by Helen Veit, The Atlantic, October 7 2015,
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/10/an-economic-history-of-leftovers/409255/
Covid-19 Could Change What We Eat and Do for Fun by Stephen Mihm, Bloomberg, June 30 2020,
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-06-30/covid-19-could-change-what-we-eat-and-do-for-fu
n
Why Americans have stopped eating leftovers, by Caitlin Dewey, The Washington Post, October 31 2017,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/10/31/why-americans-have-stopped-eating-leftover
s/