Old Food, Real Old Food.

[xux42]

On iPM today a listener admitted to recently eating Christmas Pudding Best Before End Jan 2010, with brandy butter BBE Feb 2010 .

Now I do take BBE dates with a pinch of salt but I feel highly skeptical of their claim that the 10mth out of date brandy butter was 'delicious'.

Any experiences of well out of date food & drink?

I once tried a 3 year old unopened plastic bottle of beer.

Not delicious.

On the other hand I find Bottle Conditioned real ale actually benefits from being a few months past its BB date.

[kinesin]

Marmite tastes the same when it's 6 years out of date.

Tinned pineapple has a femented tang at around the 10 year mark.

Bottles of Miso (soya beean paste)sauce seem okay a year after BBE

Most things that say once opened use within 3 days survive much longer.

[Bossybabe]

On iPM today a listener admitted to recently eating Christmas Pudding Best Before End Jan 2010, with brandy butter BBE Feb 2010 .

Now I do take BBE dates with a pinch of salt but I feel highly skeptical of their claim that the 10mth out of date brandy butter was 'delicious'.

Any experiences of well out of date food & drink?

I once tried a 3 year old unopened plastic bottle of beer.

Not delicious.

On the other hand I find Bottle Conditioned real ale actually benefits from being a few months past its BB date.

Ffs. What do you think we did before sell-by dates? Used our NOSES - if it smelt off, we threw it out, if it didn't, we ate it.

[6538]

On iPM today a listener admitted to recently eating Christmas Pudding Best Before End Jan 2010, with brandy butter BBE Feb 2010 .

Now I do take BBE dates with a pinch of salt but I feel highly skeptical of their claim that the 10mth out of date brandy butter was 'delicious'.

Any experiences of well out of date food & drink?

I once tried a 3 year old unopened plastic bottle of beer.

Not delicious.

On the other hand I find Bottle Conditioned real ale actually benefits from being a few months past its BB date.

I once ate a load of Goblin Steak & Kidney puddings and canned mince that my grandfather stockpiled in the '70's in anticipation of strikes, nuclear oblivion or somesuch. This was mid 1990's and I think they were so old that they didn't even have dates on them They were perfectly fine, as tinned food always is. I remember that years prior to that my grandparents fed loads of old tinned carrots to the dog as they say they were off but they never said how they were "off", they looked ok to me but kids aren't allowed to argue this stuff.

Tinned stuff lasts for ever from a health point of view. If its sterile when it was packed then it's still sterile when you open it 100 years later. Dried stuff like pasta lasts for ever too as long as you keep it dry and away from pests. I have an old christmas pub in the cupboard.

The problem with your plastic bottled beer is that the plastic is pourous so the co2 escapes which means that after about 6 months it's all gone.

[okaycuckoo]

Try bog butter - can be 2000 years old:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bog_butter

Tastes like cheese, apparently.

[The Masked Tulip]

The Brandy Butter would have been full of perservatives - namely sugar and brandy.

[Bossybabe]

The Brandy Butter would have been full of perservatives - namely sugar and brandy.

But today we are even adjured to keep preserves in the fridge: pickle, jam, marmalade, tomato sauce!

[The Masked Tulip]

But today we are even adjured to keep preserves in the fridge: pickle, jam, marmalade, tomato sauce!

In a HPC end of the World scenario readers of this thread would survive by going arounding kindly offering to dispose of food past its sell by date from the naive.

Things like potatoes and apples have sell-by dates on them today. For centuries people would stock up on potatoes, apples, etc, in Autumn and live off a barrel of apples or a sack of spuds through till the next Spring.

I blame the decline of the Harvest Festival... and the nanny state.

[xux42]

I have an old christmas pub in the cupboard.

Must be a mother of a cupboard

Thanks for the replies - given the Mrs & me a few giggles.

[Mrs Bear]

On iPM today a listener admitted to recently eating Christmas Pudding Best Before End Jan 2010, with brandy butter BBE Feb 2010 .

Now I do take BBE dates with a pinch of salt but I feel highly skeptical of their claim that the 10mth out of date brandy butter was 'delicious'.

Any experiences of well out of date food & drink?

I once tried a 3 year old unopened plastic bottle of beer.

Not delicious.

On the other hand I find Bottle Conditioned real ale actually benefits from being a few months past its BB date.

Honey's a good one. Read somewhere of archaeologists trying some 3000+ year old honey they'd found in a mummy's tomb.

It had gone black, but still edible.

BTW as for the brandy butter, if butter's gone rancid you can smell it a mile off. In any case, surely the brandy would help to preserve it.

[CrashedOutAndBurned]

Anyone into 'high meat'? That sounds gross.

[Chugger]

Ffs. What do you think we did before sell-by dates? Used our NOSES - if it smelt off, we threw it out, if it didn't, we ate it.

The system I was raised with, and the system I still live by.

[Kurt Barlow]

On iPM today a listener admitted to recently eating Christmas Pudding Best Before End Jan 2010, with brandy butter BBE Feb 2010 .

Now I do take BBE dates with a pinch of salt but I feel highly skeptical of their claim that the 10mth out of date brandy butter was 'delicious'.

Any experiences of well out of date food & drink?

I once tried a 3 year old unopened plastic bottle of beer.

Not delicious.

On the other hand I find Bottle Conditioned real ale actually benefits from being a few months past its BB date.

Best before is a quality not a safety parameter. Foods with best before dates do not have the water content, protein / or they have preservatives that prevent the growth of pathogenic organisms.

Meat canned in the Napoleonic war is occasionally found in stashes - and when opened is invariably safe to eat - might tast like shyte but is safe to eat.

[Kurt Barlow]

Ffs. What do you think we did before sell-by dates? Used our NOSES - if it smelt off, we threw it out, if it didn't, we ate it.

The only thing I would add to that is that it is spoilage organisms that tend to cause the smell and slimes whereas pathogens dont. The good thing is that the environmental tolerance ranges of spoilage organisms is far wider than pathogens therefore the spoilage organisms give us the heads up before the pathogens get going. You may have heard the term the good, bad and ugly in terms of bacteria (Spoilage are the 'ugly', bad are the pathogens, good are your probiotics).

Classic example spoliage of milk - it doesnt make it dangerous to drink just unpalletable.

[Kurt Barlow]

Anyone into 'high meat'? That sounds gross.

Are we talking hung matured beef on the bone - 3-4 weeks at cool (10-12 degrees C), turns virtually black?

If we are - then all I can say is try it - you havent tasted beef until you try that.

If he is still operating Geoff Sargeant at Stowbridge (Nr Downham Market, Norfolk) matures his own beef for 3 plus weeks. I would highly recommend it. The guy is fanantical about his meat - even writes out the diet plans for his cattle.

[Mikhail Liebenstein]

Are we talking hung matured beef on the bone - 3-4 weeks at cool (10-12 degrees C), turns virtually black?

If we are - then all I can say is try it - you havent tasted beef until you try that.

If he is still operating Geoff Sargeant at Stowbridge (Nr Downham Market, Norfolk) matures his own beef for 3 plus weeks. I would highly recommend it.  The guy is fanantical about his meat - even writes out the diet plans for his cattle.

I've eaten 10 year old army ration packs before now.  They are actually designed to last a very long time though.

[19 year mortgage 8itch]

I have some brandy butter dated MAR 2010 that will be opened some time over this Xmas period.

Hadn't thought twice about its out of dated-ness.

[Kurt Barlow]

I have some brandy butter dated MAR 2010 that will be opened some time over this Xmas period.

Hadn't thought twice about its out of dated-ness.

The only thing about oils is that they go rancid - as oxygen gets to it. Probably wont do you any harm but flavour will be affected.

[Kurt Barlow]

I've eaten 10 year old army ration packs before now.  They are actually designed to last a very long time though.

Providing the packaging remains in tact and they stay below about 45 degrees C they will last forever.

[athe]

The woman who runs Lea and Perrins was on the radio a while ago. She was saying that the best before date of 2 years after manufacturing was the longest that the regs would allow them but in actual fact the stuff was matured for longer than that before it goes in the bottle, and continues to get better with age. She used a bottle that was several years out of date herself.

[Freeholder]

I've eaten 10 year old army ration packs before now.  They are actually designed to last a very long time though.

In about 1970 we had some tinned compo rations dated 1956. The joke at the time was they had to be eaten with respect becaue they had a campaign medal for the Korean war. Meat and potatoes that we livened up with a bit of salt and wild garlic. Very good as I recall.

[Kurt Barlow]

The woman who runs Lea and Perrins was on the radio a while ago. She was saying that the best before date of 2 years after manufacturing was the longest that the regs would allow them but in actual fact the stuff was matured for longer than that before it goes in the bottle, and continues to get better with age. She used a bottle that was several years out of date herself.

That will be as a result of qualitative decline rather than safety. The consumer also has a right to expect a certain standard. That said there is no legal impediment stopping a retailer selling a BB product after that date. When I was a LG EHO I used to just advise (NOT INSTRUCT) shops with such goods to 'price to sell'

The law in the UK is practical, fair and sensible - no need to change anything unlike so many other things. What people need to understand is the difference between quality and safety parameters

[SarahBell]

10 day old eggs.

They were fine.

[Kurt Barlow]

10 day old eggs.

They were fine.

Better to keep refrigerated if used for lightly cooked or raw preparations. Whilst most eggs now are from Salmonella Enteriditis vacinnated stock, if they are not, temperature control may make the difference between a clinical and sub clinical dose. Other bacteria also a possibility although campylobacter doesn't grow AFAIA outside the body.

[winkie]

Has anyone noticed a few years ago they brought in a symbol system for cosmetics, shampoo, deodorant etc use before most of them are 12 months......I ignore it completely never did me any harm, had some moisturiser cream in the cupboard for about 5 years, was perfectly ok when I used it....I think it is a way of manufacturers to make more money and encourages unnecessary waste personally.