r/AskEurope • u/MrLongWalk • Jun 15 '26

Food How common are leftovers?

We have a new coworker from Europe who insists that nobody that side of the Atlantic would ever have leftovers for lunch. How true is this? For clarity he is referring to home cooked meals reheated for the next day’s lunch.

Edit: for clarity, we knew he was full of it, thank you, he owes me $5

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u/PandaDerZwote Germany Jun 15 '26

I don't know how many times one can cook too much "unintentionally" before I'd just say they cook more than they eat in a day with the intent of eating it another day.

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u/lullaby225 Jun 15 '26

Clearly you haven't met me yet! 15 years of cooking and I still can't figure out how much I gotta make. And now I have two kids who some evenings eat an entire pizza each and some evenings eat a spoon of rice and are full, I give up.

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u/ode-to-tiny-cucumber Jun 16 '26

Oh how I feel you! Yesterday I made so mch more because we planned on giving away a large portion. Kids decided they would go for seconds...thirds...  The day before (after lake swimming no less!) "I had an apple, I'm not hungry"

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u/ritadpt -> Jun 16 '26

Cultural differences, for one. It would be generally expected in Portugal, where I am from, to always cook more than necessary in case a) someone unexpectedly shows up, or b) someone happens to be hungrier than usual, because nothing would be a greater social sin than having someone leave a meal hungry at your house. That obviously creates leftovers most of the time, when something like that does not happen. But they are also not originally intended to be saved, necessarily. I know I grew up with most meals shared by my family of four creating a single leftover portion that someone would eventually eat some random evening when my mother didn't feel like cooking.

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u/PandaDerZwote Germany Jun 16 '26

Might be hair splitting, but I simply wouldn't consider any scenario in which someones cooks with the clear intent of having more than you think you would need to feed the exact amount of people you expect to be cooking for unintended.
At least not in the "Oh I didn't expect to make 6 portions with that recipe, I only needed 4" kind of sense that I think the OP was getting at with their question about the definition.

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u/ritadpt -> Jun 16 '26

I can concede that the lines are blurry. I would consider it unintended from a less rational perspective, based on how my mother always seemed to still be shocked that there was food left (especially when we had guests). While cooking, the mindset is not "let me cook extra" but more "what if that's not enough? Let me add a bit more to be safe"

But it is deeply engraved into the culture and purely illogical to be honest. Once my grandmother cooked 6 chicken "steaks" (?) for my brother-in-law on a family holiday because she was told he couldn't eat our traditional dish. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Does it make any reasonable sense that he would eat it all? No. Did she cook it expecting leftovers? Also no.

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u/PandaDerZwote Germany Jun 16 '26

But isn't that exactly the idea behind cooking so much that you expect it to be more than will be eaten?
I mean, when my family gets together there is always enough food being made so that you never fall short and the surplus isn't planned as "We will eat x today and the rest of it tomorrow, so there are two days covered" but it's not like people don't comprehend the fact that this more than is needed at that evening?
I mean obviously they will exclaim that they didn't expect to have that much left over, but at some point I'd just think "Grandma you have been doing this for decades, there is always 25% extra" and don't really believe that she is (or anyone in that situation) is genuinly surprised by the amount, but rather that its just a cultural reaction.

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u/ritadpt -> Jun 19 '26

No, they genuinely have zero plans for the leftovers. Even if it's not that much of a shock, their hope is to have no leftovers, and there is no plan to have food left for other meals.

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u/PandaDerZwote Germany Jun 19 '26

So they are throwing them out?

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u/ritadpt -> Jun 19 '26

I genuinely don't know how better to explain it because I think the idea just doesn't translate interculturally. Of course they don't throw it out, but it's more like if you buy a sandwich and realise halfway through you are too full to finish and save the rest. You didn't buy the sandwich expecting to have some left. You just happened to not be as hungry as you thought initially. (Or maybe that has also never happened to you idk)

It's that but on a larger scale plus mixed with having to estimate how hungry someone ELSE will be because it's a high context communication culture where you are expected to anticipate other people's needs.

Edit to add: And while they don't outright throw it out they do often almost force people to take food home with them and/or give it away to anyone they find.

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u/PandaDerZwote Germany Jun 19 '26

Yeah, I understand you. My point is simply that if you do that once or twice, thats an accident, if you buy the sandwich that is twice as large as you eat for a meal every day, I simply don't think its accidental at that point.