I'm sure that, over the course of my long life, I've done take-out dozens, make that hundreds of time.
There was no such thing as takeout when I was growing up, at least not in my family. We didn't even do the takeout fish in chips from the diner that all my friends' families seemed to do on a Friday night. While they were unwrapping the newspapers that contained the steaming mounds of deep-fried fish and French fries, my mother was panfrying haddock in the spider pan. Fried, just not not fried.
But as an adult, occasional take out has been a wonder, a pleasure, and often a godsend.
I would guess that about 66% of my lifetime takeout has been pizza; 33% Chinese or Thai; and the remaining 1% something from a local place when someone's under the weather. (Don't know how to factor in lobster rolls or clam rolls in here. Are they takeout? Fast food? Does it make a difference if the restaurant is sit down or not?)
Since the pandemic, those proportions have changed, and the majority of my takeout is of the full meal variety.
It began last Easter, when my brother Rich and I had joined together in unholy bubble-hood for the duration, and I invited him over for dinner.
Sure, I could have made ham. And potatoes, creamed onions, lima beans, coleslaw, pineapple-raisin sauce. I could have made a carrot cake for dessert, which is usually what I bring to my sister Trish's for Easter dinner which, in the before times, she hosted. (I'm hoping that she will return to in the after times.)
Right about the time I was thinking through Easter dinner for two, I got an email from a catering service on the South Shore. The mail didn't actually come to me as me. It came to a charity I volunteer with - among other things, I answer the info@ queries - that the caterer has donated to in the past. They were advertising a quite nice dinner. Quite pricey, but quite nice. We both decided on the tenderloin.
On Easter Saturday, the delivery guy for the caterer showed up with two giant bags full of containers, stuffed with our Easter meal and the heat-up instructions.
Plastic-y containers for the bread (and butter). Plastic-y containers for the salad (and dressing). Plastic-y containers for the appetizer. Plastic-y containers for the steaks, the potatoes, the veggies. Plastic-y containers for the array of desserts that included mini-mini carrot cakes, among numerous other goodies. Enough plastic-y containers to half-fill my recycle box.
The meal was quite excellent. And with all the heating up of the various courses and sides, I almost felt as if I was slaving away in the kitchen.
Since then, I've done takeout maybe once or twice a month. Sometimes I'm solo, which usually means an order of pad thai from the Thai place on Charles. Or a pizza to carry me through a few days. (I much enjoy cold pizza.) If I'm with my brother, often joined by his pescatarian daughter, we order from my old go-to for dine-in, 75 Chestnut, or Antonio's on Cambridge Street. Or Chinese. One time we did Figs. They really should have told us that the salmon was prepared with lardons, which didn't quite make my pescatarian niece all that happy.
I would much prefer to be sitting in a restaurant, enjoying any and all of these meals while being waited on. Sure, when I get the meals home, I plate them - just say NO to eating out of a black plastic-y container; and don't get me going on plastic "cutlery" - but it's not the same as eating off someone else's china, that they get to scrape and wash. I like having a waiter fetch a glass of wine. Deciding on dessert until the main course is done.
Eating takeout is just not the same as seeing what the folks at the next table are having, and decided that it looks good.
It's not the same as having the waiter recite the specials.
It's not the same as seeing other people around and not worrying about whether they're shedding COVID all over you.
But for now, we're in takeout territory. And every order brings in more and more containers, most of them of the black-bottom-clear-top variety.
One time, I ordered a fig-and-prosciutto flatbread from 75 Chestnut (which is aptly named, as it is on Chestnut Street, at 75 in fact, but which years ago, and for the longest time, was called The Charles).
Anyway, that flatbread pizza was broken up and delivered in three - count 'em three - containers.
I plan on ordering it again. It was absolutely delish. But next time, I'll tell them they can layer the flatbread so it fits in one container.
I keep a few of these takeout containers around for leftovers, but mostly they just go into my recycle. And while I have absolutely no reason to believe that what goes into my recycle actually ends up being recycled, as opposed to taking up space in a landfill, I will have tried my best.
What I hadn't given much thought to is that, for container companies, the pandemic must be quite a boon. And for restaurants, an additional expense during a time when they're getting squeezed from all sides.
Shifting to takeout during the pandemic has forced food operators to reassess their menus and staffing. It’s also made them do far more thinking about to-go packaging than many ever imagined.
Today chefs pore over catalogs for paper goods the same way they obsess over ingredients. Because when you deconstruct the dining experience, it’s things like packaging that can leave consumers with a bad taste in their mouths (literally, some fear). And with that comes a whole host of hospitality dilemmas: Will the integrity of the dish stay true? Will the food stay hot? Will the sauce seep out? And what impact will all of this packaging have on the planet? (Source: Boston Globe)
Even before the pandemic, takeout had been on the rise, with more and more people using GrubHub and other services to get their meals delivered. Don't know whether this was in lieu of going out to eat or in addition to it, but takeout/eat-in has been on the rise.
And then, suddenly, it turned into the main source of revenue. And those containers all add up.
“Our eyes were always on the prices of proteins, dairy, seafood, produce, etc.,” said Alex Saenz, of Bisq and Taqueria El Barrio. “Once COVID hit and the world flipped, we noticed, without warning, the hefty change in prices for all our goods. Takeout containers and bags, disposable utensils, cups, gloves, and such all skyrocketed.”
The decrease in spending on dishwashing soap helps offset things a little, but doesn't make up for the new costs. Not to mention that delivery services like GrubHub take a bit whack out of the bill.
Some restaurants are going above and beyond the black-bottomed box.
At Uni, which had a nascent takeout business pre-COVID, the team has had to find ways to recreate a luxury dining experience at home. That’s meant sending sushi omakase home in chocolate boxes, with little menus tucked inside like the little “candy maps” you find tucked inside boxes of Russell Stover chocolates. They also purchased small glass bottles for to-go cocktails.
“We hand-label them so it feels fun and rustic,” said Harrison Smith, the restaurant’s general manager, who admits it’s “definitely different” to box up an upscale dining experience.
All this sounds a bit much. And, while I see the "fun" part of getting a to-go cocktail in a small glass bottle, what's rustic about it? It's not like country folks have been out there artisanally labeling their fancy-arse violet-infused Cosmos. If anything, they were drinking moonshine out of a Mason jar.
Anyway, like everyone else, I'm eager to get the pandemic behind us. I'm eager to get back into a restaurant where I can actually sit down and enjoy the scene, rather than hurry in with my mask on and pick up my takeout bag from behind a plexiglass barrier. If I never see another plastic-y takeout container in my life - other than one used as a doggy bag - I'll be quite content.
As for the container company: enjoy it while it lasts!
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