An old saying goes, "If it's free, it's vegan." NP also has a saying: "You get what you pay for." Nonetheless, in these times of hardship, our correspondents have turned reluctantly to tactics used by some elements of the social fringe.
Even in times of plenty, cadres of disenfranchised trust-funders, tree huggers, and self-righteous WTO protesters have often opted for the flagrantly unsanitary and declasse practice of dumpster diving. Popularized by the decidedly sexier subculture of urban hackers, late night romps with wire and bolt cutters, sifting through detritus for salvageable refuse have caught on among Ras Trent lookalikes and Ani DiFranco fans the world over. Only these miscreants aren't interested in credit card details or discarded passwords: they simply crave rotten apples, spoiled pastry, and maybe the remnants of that bottle of Old Smuggler from last night's party.
While many of the yields of late night dumpster raids are of such inferior quality that they must be dressed up or masked over like bathtub gin or a bad tattoo, it is remarkably easy to score 86ed foodstuffs in volume. A slow day at the bakery or an overshipment of moldering endives usually means that the more assiduous among you can accumulate Costco sized quantities of immune-system stimulating foodstuffs for the whole family/squat/performance collective. What's more, many higher end urban establishments are accustomed to wandering vagrants and local charities picking through their rubbish heaps, so poach on.
As they say, beggars can't be choosers, but with the copious bounty on offer in the back alleys of New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, maybe *you* can.
