Eat All About It

Hunger Challenge: The Final Day

I was mildly obsessed by fish during the United Way Hunger Challenge, probably because I’ve been so generally confounded seeking out an affordable fish dinner that doesn’t raise warnings of mercury, PCBs, or other environmental and ethical concerns. Shrimp once seemed a reasonable choice, for instance, until I read Taras Grescoe’s description of how “if you are eating cheap shrimp today, it almost certainly comes from a turbid, pesticide- and antibiotic-filled, virus-ridden pond in … one of the world’s poorest countries.” 

For the last day of the Hunger Challenge on Friday, I took advantage of the fish counter at Ranch 99 Market, which will clean and steak whole fish for no additional fee. I violated the prime directive of thoughtful shopping — don’t go with a toddler if you can possibly avoid it —  and wound up with this whole farm-raised trout at $4.99/lb (The total was $8.50, though it included the head, which I discarded). If I’d been thinking cogently, instead of assuring the frantic toddler that we would, indeed, return to watch the live “crabbies” in the tank, I might have gone for the mackerel, which was both cheaper and wild-caught, or the squid, which the kids would have liked better.

I’m starting to think that successful budget shopping is a mixture of careful planning and careful lack of planning: I went shopping without a recipe, so I could buy whatever fit my budget and survey what looked like the cheapest and most attractive accompaniments. Chicken thighs were on sale and would have been a quarter of the price, but I wanted to hold firm on buying only chicken with at least some sort of cruelty-free pedigree, as hard as that can be to validate. Spareribs were cheaper than fish, but I wasn’t in the mood for my favorite sparerib-daikon stew. So I wound up with the trout, along with scallions (25 cents a bunch, a fifth of what I’ve seen them for at other markets), and about 50 cents worth combined of fresh lime, ginger, and garlic. I had a vague idea of stir-frying the fish, but it looked far too thick, so I brushed the steaks in olive oil and baked them, then topped them with a sauce of garlic and ginger and scallions sauteed in olive oil, with a tablespoon of butter and the juice of a squeezed lime at the end. It wasn’t earth-shattering, but it was good, served with a side of grilled bok choy ($1.29/lb) and some sweet, insanely cheap soft sesame rolls from the Ranch 99 bakery (around 19 cents each.)

Then, the planning demon slipped in again: The fish had seemed a steal at about $1.50 per serving… but we were going out of town for the weekend, and the leftovers wouldn’t keep. I would have done just as well buying a smaller quantity of pricier fish, one that I might have both liked more and felt better about buying. And then, the challenge was officially done. 

Thinking the week over in the end, I mostly feel lucky: Lucky that, even without a full-time paycheck, I have the luxury of a working car and enough money to buy more than I truly need. Lucky that I have the ability to cook, and — though it doesn’t usually feel like it — the time to survey different grocery stores and to cook at home. And, of course, thinking about all the people who aren’t anywhere near as lucky as I still am.

It feels like a token to make a donation to fight hunger as a response — but then, it was something of a token gesture to stick to a food stamp budget for a week.  I’ve just made a donation to United Way’s Basic Needs Fund, and if you’re inspired to join me they have a donation link here. Thank you for following along, and I’ll be curious to see if our food budget drops as a result of seeing just how much “extra” we really have.