Really there's no shame. There's a recession. You're hungry. You've got no money or you don't want to blow your wad. You don't want to eat and run. No energy to flee.Here's the solution: head on over to the nearest buffet restaurant and rather than go in the front door, go around back. Instead of paying to eat, you get lunch for free.
Hell bring a date. You'll prove yourself awfully resourceful and inventive.
My old place on Drummond bordered the backdoor to a Chinese buffet and those with the strength to withstand public scrutiny would often battle pigeons for a spot at the dumpster delectables. Perfectly good General Tao Chicken, steamed rice, sometimes even still hot, awaited these hungry mouths. You just had to lean over and pick it up. No waiters to tip.
Here now, is a list that someone has compiled with the best places to find food in garbage in Montreal. We believe that someone can make massive improvements on this list.
Coolopolis practices this as well. The photo shows the Coolopolis Towers kitchen intern starting the process of making sandwiches for the staff.
Abbie Hoffman got flack decades ago for printing details
ReplyDeleteof where to get food, his being so obvious and some say
done more for grandstanding.
People have always done it, not just dumpsters but
leftovers at farmer's markets, but it's not a promoted
activity. When the Diggers cooked up free food in
San Francisco back in 1967, they got a lot of the
ingredients from farmer's markets. I gather the
Black Panther free breakfast program derives from
that free food in the park, and likely they relied
on the same source.
Then Abbie prints such things in a very public place,
and either it caused competition for a finite amount
of food, or the owners of the garbage clamped down,
either because of the mess the newcomers left or
because they suddenly realized it wasn't something
invisible.
Naming specific sites in public (and I realize you
are just pointing to something someone else did) may
seem all hip and everything, but if you were homeless
and counted on that bakery being a great source of
bread items, you'd be bugged too when everyone overran it.
On the other hand, it's amazing how often you can be
walking down the street and find mystery food just lying
there, not garbage because it's intact and still carefully
in the packaging. Spilled bags may account for it, but
sometimes it seems deliberate, someone leaving food for
others (though maybe it's not meant as a nice thing, they
want to lure the hungry for some reason).
Some years back, I remember seeing posters up near the
Atwater Market, someone got into trouble for pulling
food out of the garbage there and was somehow "banned"
(I can't remember the exact details) and was postering
as a response.
Meanwhile, in alt.dumpster they live out their
outlaw dreams by mangling names of stores where they've
found things, in the belief that the big chains either
read the newsgroup or run software to watch for their
names, and then will clamp down on what's being tossed
out. That seems more a conspiracy dream, since merely
naming a grocery store is quite different from
a specific location of that grocery store.
One also has to consider a "lifestyle" versus a "life".
Once you get to the point where there's a name for it,
chances are good it's a chosen lifestyle rather than need.
Some univeristy kid jumps on a bandwagon "wow, look at
all this food going to waste, let's make it a movement",
while the homeless may be less interested or at least
not so vocal. Or lots of people doing it more casually,
taking what they need and leaving the rest, while a "lifestyle"
ignores what already existed.
Michael
freeganism. look it up.
ReplyDeleteGood essay MB, with many truths.
ReplyDeletePS, Coolo...that photo(shopped) has more layers than the best filo pastry at...