February "feast" (or fast? or famine?)

[Pellice]

I saw a reference yesterday to what someone called a "February Feast," which is nothing more than yet another of those initiatives to inflict some kind of ... diet? discipline? dearth? deprivation? penance? ... on ourselves. There's "Dryuary," there's all the New Year's Resolutions, there's the "Financial Fast," and then the original (not so ancient as we think, though), Lent and other religious fasts.

Anyway, the idea is to clean out your freezer, fridge, and pantry. This idea appeals to me more than most, although I wouldn't commit, as some do, to using nothing more than what's in storage. The idea seems to mimic what my ancestresses went through (except no suffering is involved). This is the time of year, at least in the northern hemisphere, when stores ran low, when the weather impeded outside movement, when the village hoped its supplies would outlast the winter.

I'll settle for emptying the larders! I've emptied 3 containers from my freezer, along with some long-frozen meat. I'm going to at least make this a cooking focus for the month. I guess February Fast is as accurate a label as any!

 

[pepperhead212]

I did something similar to this last year, sort of as a NYs resolution. I cleaned out my freezer (didn't throw out much at all, just organized it, and put oldest in the front), inventoried it, and began eating much of the leftover things, and the meats and poultry in the foodsaver bags. I put nothing else into the freezer until March 15, which was some leftover chili, made from a bunch of frozen beef, so that wasn't too bad! I refused to buy anything else to put into the freezer, even if it was a really good deal, and by summer, I had a lot of room in there for all those veggies from the garden. I'm still doing this, more than a year later, though last night I put 5 lbs of trimmed and Foodsavered boneless chicken thighs in the freezer - first time I had done something like that, only because I was out of those. I'm still trying to use up all of the other things, esp. those veggies, before this year's harvest starts! Probably the reason for this diet, or feast, you mention.