When neither Dave nor I are in a cooking mood and it's getting close to suppertime (or dinnertime if you live in a city larger than ours), one of us will say "Let's just have Musgoes". We've used this term for decades and I've noticed our offspring use it in their households too.
It's our word for checking the fridge and making a meal of things that "must go". We heat up a little of this, a little of that, some left-over chili, maybe roasted vegetables from a few nights ago, or find enough tail-ends of vegetables in the crisper to make a creative salad. We'll likely eat totally different things and one of us may supplement our meal with a scrambled egg. We might open a bottle of wine to pull it all together and have a surprisingly fine sit-down meal.
I just read an article by Roz Chast and am borrowing the results from her poll which asked people the terms they use for this activity. Her family calls it "fending". She found others call it hunt-and-peck, getcheroni, scavenging, foraging, having weirds, blackout bingo, going feral, jungle dinner or dirt night. Some say having "ifits" as in "if it's in the fridge, it's fair game".
Here's her original illustration.
Creative people like acronyms, YOYO (you're on your own) or FIFI (find it and fix it). CORE is a nice one (clean out the refridgerator of everything).
Dave used to say we're having Kitchen Chackatori for a casserole that included left-over roast chicken.
I expect every household does this since who wants to waste good food? Help yourself to one of the names above if you don't already have your own.
Credits:
1. I have a vague memory that our term Musgoes, optional spelling Must-goes, came from our old friend Bernie B. many years ago.
2. Illustration, article concept, and research data is from Roz Chast from The New Yorker magazine, April 2021.
