If I’m being honest, my favorite part of Thanksgiving is the leftovers. This isn’t a novel declaration, as evidenced by the number of guides out there for making the perfect leftovers sandwich (for me, that’s toasted white bread stacked high with turkey, cranberry sauce, a thin layer of stuffing and an even thinner sliver of brie) as well as slightly more involved fare: burritos, hashes, turkey noodle soup, casseroles, Hot Browns, empanadas and this new Thanksgiving Leftovers Hot Pocket by J. Kenji López-Alt, which I’m dying to try.
That said, I understand that once the turkey has been stripped for all it’s worth and there’s no gravy left even in the deep recesses of the refrigerator, the concept of leftovers doesn’t necessarily have the same allure the other 364 days a year. Much like cafeteria food, liver and onions and canned cream of mushroom soup, leftovers have gotten a bad rap. Who wants to pack leftovers when you could pay $22 for a Sweetgreen salad delivery? Who wants to reach the end of a long day at home, walk in the cold to the train, then from the train to your apartment, only to reheat what you ate last night?
Me. That would be me. Sign me up.
Why? Well, my love of leftovers is partially rooted in my deep belief that there are so many things worth eating — beef stew, chili, a good veggie lasagna — that are even better the next day. This is an assertion that’s actually backed up by some science. Foods that are prepared with aromatics, like onions and garlic, tend to become more flavorful as they cool and then are reheated as the various flavor compounds in the dish meld and become more seasoned and, typically, a little less bitter.
But a big part of my appreciation for leftovers is simply due to the fact that, despite their sometimes stayed reputation, when one assesses the spectrum of food history, leftovers are a relatively new invention. And who doesn’t like a little novelty?
Since the dawn of time, humans have worked diligently to find ways to preserve the food they obtained and make it stretch. This was done through various methods like sun-drying, smoking, salting, fermentation, curing, pickling and, in regions where it was cold enough, developing some kind of cool storage. This last method was a popular one and led to the creation of ice houses, ice boxes and then, eventually, the refrigerator.
The first practical and commercially successful refrigerator was invented by Carl von Linde, a German engineer, in 1876, and it had a significant impact on food preservation, storage, and distribution, revolutionizing the way people kept and consumed perishable goods. As refrigerators became more and more common, the way many Americans cooked changed, too. The focus was less on preserving items for the long term and more on how to transform some elements of last night’s dinner into a new, hot meal. In 1890, the term “leftover” was officially coined.
This way of thinking was only further catalyzed by World War I which, according to the National Museum of American History, positioned saving and reusing food as a patriotic duty. A United States Food Administration poster that was created and distributed during the war urged citizens: “Food — Don’t Waste It. Use less wheat and meat. Buy local foods. Serve just enough. Use what is left.”
The war ended, which brought many Americans a few years of prosperity, but then came the stock market crash of 1929 and the ensuing Depression.
“It was unthinkable to throw away food during the Great Depression, and refrigerator sales grew thanks to discounted prices offered by manufacturers,” wrote Emma Grahn of the National Museum of American History. “The real bump in refrigerator sales, however, started in 1935, when New Deal loans encouraged Americans to make the switch to electric.”
Fast-forward a few decades, however, and leftovers had lost their luster. The 1963 edition of “The Joy of Cooking,” featured a section dedicated to leftovers that was drastically condensed when compared with the original 1931 edition which author Irma Rombauer said she created “one eye on the family purse.” As food and nutrition historian Helen Veit wrote for The Atlantic in 2015, this new edition opened with a joke: “‘It seems to me,’ the minister said, after his new wife placed a dubious casserole on the table, ‘that I have blessed a good deal of this material before.’”
“The truth was that by the 1960s leftovers were becoming a joke to a lot of people, with a grumbling husband and a mystery casserole playing stock roles,” Veit wrote. “That humor was a direct result of abundance. In the postwar era, a historically anomalous food economy was coming to define American culture, as the cost of food relative to income plummeted and even the poorest Americans were less desperate for calories than they had ever been. Leftovers were coming to seem less like a signal of household abundance and more like a drag. The best way to serve them, another joke went, was to somebody else.”
But Thanksgiving is as good an opportunity as any to reassess any lingering beliefs you might have that leftovers are tedious or gross — especially this Thanksgiving. According to the Census Bureau's Household Pulse Survey, nearly 28 million people reported experiencing food scarcity at the end of October, which is both the highest number of 2023 and the highest number recorded by the survey since December 2020.
On a holiday that, among other things, is grounded in the idea of abundance, how are you going to use what’s left over?
