Popular dishes that trace their roots to leftovers

Choy geok is a dish that is typically served to make use of all the leftover meat from CNY. — Filepic

We live in an era of unprecedented abundance and nowhere is this more evident than in our modern food culture. For most urbanites, food is both readily available and easily accessible and this largesse has in turn generated rampant food wastage.

In Malaysia, food waste is staggering, with over 4,000 tonnes of edible food waste thrown away daily, according to data from the Solid Waste Management and Public Cleansing Corporation.