Scrapatarian - a new word for the English language

I've been looking for a word to describe my eating philosophy and this week in Costa Rica, we hit upon it during a brief brainstorming session: scrapatarian. This is close to freegan, which is a vegan when it comes to buying food, but if it's free will eat anything. For me, it's not if the food is free, it is if it's getting wasted that I will eat it (and here, "it" can be ANYTHING - people are amazed to see me eat red meat, as if that is somehow "worse" than eating chicken for someone who normally only eats plants and does so for ethical reasons).

This week in costa rica, we went out to eat every night and the portions were big, so I ate the scraps off of nearly every plate towards the end of each meal. I got pretty full needless to say, but that is the origin of "scrapatarian". Hoping it spreads so pass this post along. As of this posting, a google search on the word brings 0 hits. This will change in a couple days though, since google tracks blogspot.

I obtained a couple books on plants and edibles from costa rica, but it was too overwhelming and the only things I spotted were coconuts, maybe some date palms, and definitely a well trodded and well pissed on patch of purslane down by the beach bar called D+N. At a farmer's market though, I asked what some long brown root was nad they told me burdock. I obviously got excited and ate it that night. What a plant, along the charles, and cultivated in costa rica.

One month to foraging again. Brill's first tours are March 6 in central park and march 7 in prospect park. If I'm not in Haiti, I might have to go down and have some fun.

Check out Rule 31 from Michael Pollan's new little guide book Food Rules.

I had some mild success surfing this week, but I still don't have the courage to get out there and go for a big wave. Maybe this goes back to getting pummeled at surfside beach in Nantucket one too many times as a kid while my brother and the Thorntons seemed to fully enjoy themselves.