First Bites
Years ago Lena let me in on a secret: a certain bagel shop in Brooklyn that puts all its leftover bagels in a single trash bag on the street. We biked up to the bag and Lena showed me how to feel each of the black trash bags for the telltale bagel-y lumps of this carbo-lode. They taught me the way folks carefully re-tie the bag after claiming their pumpernickel and cinnamon raisin, an unspoken courtesy among those who know about this precious resource to keep it clean and intact for the next person to come along.
Secondi
The Brooklyn bagel shop was not my first garbage bagel. When I worked at a bagel shop in Northfield, Minnesota I would fix myself a breakfast sandwich or some oatmeal when I got to work and another sandwich for lunch when I left. On days when I closed the shop I’d fill a bag with leftovers and out-of-date cream cheese to bring home to my roommates. The rest of the leftover bagels would go in a bag by themselves, another unspoken courtesy between us workers and the folks digging through our dumpster.
The management of that shop encouraged us to take what we needed; they knew exactly how slim a part-time bagel slinger’s budget is, and did what they could to take care of us. This isn’t the case with every food service job I’ve worked, but even with stingier management no one sells out their coworker for taking an unaccounted-for shift meal or some out-of-date hummus. It was the same case at GrowNYC’s youthmarket, the job Lena and I first worked together. Unsold produce was donated to community partners, but before dropping it off, you and the staff made sure to get all the collards, cranberries, and carrots you needed.
Most do not dig through dumpsters for the joy of thrift alone, or to reduce residual food waste; you do it because that’s all you can afford. On my walks to work at the bagel shop I got into the habit of picking plantago from the sidewalk and ducking into the woods to find spring ramps and autumn morels—not to bring me closer to the landscape but to supplement my grocery budget. These are environmental acts of convenience, of coincidence, not of intention. Foraging and garbage picking are an environmentalism of the poor that is ultimately about eating in a system that thinks you should starve.
These stories of free food have a sort of romance to them, because it’s a fairly ethical means of consumption that frays the edges of capitalism. But the part of my story I don’t often tell is that during this time in my life I also stole food. I didn’t steal from shops for fear of repercussions, but in my first apartment on Classon Ave I would sometimes nick bits and pieces from the apartment cupboard that didn’t belong to me. I tried to keep to the edges, take stuff that had sat untouched for a long time, or out of date things that I could claim to have “thrown away.” I think for the most part my theft went unnoticed, but not entirely, and it built some uncomfortable tension in the house.
My small robberies weren’t a kind of kleptomania but the result of fear. Every little expense, from train fare to the laundromat, was too much for my budget. When I was afraid to go grocery shopping and use up all my budget before my next paycheck it was easier to nick a box of mac and cheese from the cupboard and tell myself I would replace it when my paycheck came in. I needed help but didn’t know my roommates well enough to ask them, so I nibbled at the edges, the way I had learned to survive in most every situation. It isn’t something I’m proud of, but I try not to hold much contempt for myself in those moments either.
L’addition
I got into a similarly desperate financial situation last year when my PhD stipend was delayed for three months. Friends and family helped pitch in for rent and expenses, but grocery shopping scared me again. Unlike last time, I didn’t have a food-service job to supply my lunch or a farm connection to provide me with leftover produce. But I did have roommates that cared enough to help.
Our house has been in the habit of making dinner together, and it was easy to help cook for everyone if someone else got the groceries, adding receipts to our expense-sharing app. My roommates and I were friendly and they knew I was broke, but it quickly became an unspoken courtesy: I’ll get the groceries tonight, you’ll be back on your feet eventually. I’ve leaned on my roommates here in Dublin considerably more than those little accumulated thefts on Classon Ave, but this inter-reliance has made us closer, not put up walls. It’s that same inter-reliance of the early days when Lena and I were getting to know one another, the unspoken courtesy of leading someone to a hidden resource, one governed by networks of need and inter-reliance.