There is plenty of timely advice on both the Wasted Food and Love Food, Hate Waste websites. However, it occurred to me that the majority of the advice centers on the planning and discipline that is common if you were taught how to cook from a child of the depression or a home economics teacher. (And woe is you whose home ec teacher was also a child of the depression.)

Such general advice such as “plan out a week of menus,” “be realistic about portions” and “use your leftovers” are fitting reminders if you are an old hand but younger cooks and those who follow recipes closely may need some frugal fundamentals. For an eye-opening lesson in kitchen economics head to a used book store and look for cookbooks and entertaining guides from decades past. In the forties and fifties, before the onset of convenience foods and widespread prosperity, the cookbooks taught a generation of young brides how to stretch minuscule budgets. In the sixties and seventies, books of hints from women named Heloise and Mary Ellen taught people, mostly other women household tips for cooking and cleaning. Many of today’s articles about going green borrow heavily from this genre so why shouldn’t you.

Come back soon and I will share tips gleaned from hazy memories of home economics classes, from working in restaurants, from my obsession with out-of-print cookbooks and from forward thinkers such as Jonathan Bloom and leagues of college students going trayless.