Waste Not, Want Not

What becomes of all that food that isn’t sold?

by Ying Wang

We live in a land of plenty. So much so that the unavoidable challenge of the 21st century in America is what to do with our wastes.

In the first in a continuing series, Bay Weekly explores one consequence of glorious abundance in our grocery stores, markets, restaurants, delis and bakeries: Waste.

At the 6pm closing of the Deale Farmers’ Market, Gail Wilkerson had sold out of corn, tomatoes and cabbage. About all she had left was one vase of zinnias and three nearly full bushel baskets, one of cucumbers, one of yellow squash and one of zucchini.

What would she do with them? Take them to her next farmers’ market, Annapolis Farmers’ Market at Riva?

“No.” said Wilkerson. “We pick fresh every day, or, for a morning market, on the night before.”

Will she throw them away?

“No!” Wilkerson said, emphatically. “I can’t bear to waste. Friends and neighbors come over after each market for leftovers. My sister, Virginia Ward, takes most of the zucchini to bake zucchini bread. She freezes it and gives it as gifts.”

The remainder Wilkerson takes to two churches, Wesley Chapel and Friendship United Methodist churches, to put out for taking in their fellowship halls. Much of the congregation is former farmers, she said, “who appreciate home-grown vegetables.”