For the average Fed dinner, ingredients cost . . . well, enough that I’m embarrassed to admit how much.

This morning I’m trying to produce our meal for under $1.75. For three people. So I’ve got my scale out, weighing a carrot at 105 grams. I went to a few shops before I found them for $1.31 a kilo.

The Live Below the Line fundraising campaign asks each participant to eat for five days on $1.75 a day, as 20 percent of the world’s population does. The challenge runs from April 27 to May 1 with participants fundraising for anti-poverty organizations such as Oxfam Canada, Crossroads International and Canadian Hunger Foundation (donors can choose which group they want their money to go to).

With community manager Dominic Mishio and participating comedian Colin Mochrie coming over, I think one of the usual three-course Fed dinners would be in poor taste. So we’re just doing a quick breakfast. Also, I’m a wealthy, privileged Torontonian. Cutting my food budget won’t simulate the reality of being hungry, poor and looking for a job. But in promoting the charities, I would like to find out if I can make a meal for 58 cents a person.

A friend who’s been doing the campaign for the last two years just eats oatmeal for the week.

Since he’ll be busy during the campaign, Mishio has already done his five days, he and his wife subsisting on a vegetable noodle dish, carrot peels turned into a stock for lentil soup, and snacking on dry, salt-free popcorn.

“The most satisfying popcorn I’ve ever had,” he says.

My gut instinct was to cook beans. A half-cup of dried beans weighs about four ounces. Walking around Kensington, I find black beans for $1.55/lb —38 cents for half a cup — and organic ones for $2.59/lb. Soaked in water overnight and boiled, they quadruple in size. Fried with half an onion ($0.17) and mashed, they make a hearty filling for a tortilla ($3/kilo at La Tortilleria, so $0.09 each). Feeling cocky, I add a half-cup of pinto beans ($0.38), then make a hot sauce by roasting three carrots ($0.44), an onion ($0.34), clove of garlic ($0.04) and a habanero chili (the lady at the store didn’t weigh it, just told me two for a quarter). So that’s 94 cents for the sauce and we use about a fifth of it. Plus the filling, plus a dozen tortillas. At $2.19 for the meal, or let’s say $2.29 with the splash of oil I use, I’m already over the line.

To live on this, I’d have to subtract something from my food budget for the rest of the day. That’s what most people face. If you’re guessing that the $1.75 is a direct currency translation and that it would go much farther in a developing country, no. It’s calculated based on purchasing power to estimate the budget of extreme poverty in North America. So to survive, you’ve got to count every penny. And to derive any pleasure from food on that kind of budget, you’ve got to get creative.

Mochrie is known internationally as a cast member of Whose Line Is it Anyway? He’s performed on the UK and U.S. version of the television show, and still travels the world with a stage version.

“Doing five cities in India, we were a little nervous. It’s a totally different culture. But in our very first scene we asked for a suggestion and we got ‘fart.’”

I’d never thought of cooking as improvisation until the comedian suggests the overlap.

“One of the main rules in improv is something called ‘Yes, and,’ where you accept what the other person gives you and then you build on that. So this,” he indicates the challenge of cooking on a micro-budget. “I’m accepting what the challenges are and finding a way to build on this. The options are more limited that you have in real improv, where you can go anywhere.”

He never cooked until the birth of his first child, asking his wife, “‘This cooking thing, do you just look at the recipes and do it?’ I’ve never seen her so happy. Because she always hated cooking. And I found I really enjoyed it.”

He does all of the cooking at home, accommodating a wife who eats chicken but no red meat, a pescatarian son and, for a while, his son’s vegan live-in girlfriend, often making a pasta base with alternate proteins for each person.

“I like challenges. I like word games. To me it’s a puzzle. How can I satisfy these four people who have nothing in common?”

A puzzle is a good description of menu planning, finding the right pieces to appease each guest’s appetite or diet, without defaulting to making nachos every week (not that anyone would complain).

For this challenge, I have the luxury of running round Kensington and Chinatown to find the lowest prices. A regular supermarket has one kind of carrot so there’s not much wiggle room in the cost of raw ingredients.

At least Loblaws has started an admirable “Naturally Imperfect” program. The backstory is that the produce you usually see on display has been sorted to weed out the “ugly” zucchinis and peppers.

“We’re so obsessed with beauty,” Mochrie half-jokes.

Less-attractive produce gets sold at a discount, those flats of yams you see for 49 cents a pound on the Spadina sidewalk outside the Chinese supermarket.

Loblaws has been marketing this perfectly good stuff at a reduced rate, though their branding focuses not on bruised produce that’s aesthetically unpopular, but amusingly misshapen apples and potatoes.

So, not actually ugly. But “TV ugly.”

“I don’t know that one,” says Mishio.

Mochrie and I explain the term, meaning handsome enough to play an unattractive person on television.

“I think I’ve been called that a couple times,” says Mochrie.

RECIPE

20 Cent Tacos

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1 cup (250 mL) dried black beans

1 cup (250 mL) dried pinto beans

salt

1 tbsp (15 mL) olive oil

1 onion, diced

3 carrots

1 habanero chili

1 clove garlic

16 tortillas

1 tbsp (15 mL) chopped cilantro

1 tbsp (15 mL) chopped scallion

Separately soak black beans and pinto beans in cold water overnight. In the morning, strain and rinse. In separate pots, cover beans in water with a pinch of salt and bring to a boil. Reduce and simmer until beans are soft, about 25 minutes. Strain and set aside, reserving about a cup (250 mL) of the black bean liquid.

In a large pan, use 1/3rd of the olive oil to sauté half of the onion on medium heat until soft, about 5 minutes. Add black beans, fry for about 5 minutes, then add reserved liquid and mash with potato masher. Season to taste with salt, adding water if too thick.

Preheat oven to 350F/180C. On a roasting pan, mix carrots, remaining onion, garlic and habanero with 1/3rd of the olive oil and a sprinkle of salt. Roast until carrots are soft, about 30 minutes. It’s OK if the onions are a little charred. Puree in blender with final third olive oil and 1 cup (250 mL) water. Season to taste.

To serve, reheat black beans and pinto beans. Warm tortillas in pan on low heat. Place beans on each tortilla, topped with carrot hot sauce, cilantro and scallion.

Makes 4 servings

Star-tested by Corey Mintz