Archive:Quick Questions on food safety / sell by / use by dates

tandraig

cold jam on hot toast - perish the thought!!! you are right too valk_scot. in my childhood home the pantry was at front of house off the living room for some strange reason - and the kitchen was then to the side off living room at back of house! my mum was ever so grateful for the fridge as it saved her trekking back and forth all day. so lots of things were kept in fridge that didnt need to be!!! and that pantry was FREEZING in the winter - vividly remember having to defrost milk or else you had one lump or two in your tea. lol

funkymonkey849

thriftlady wrote: »

Why on earth would any of these need to be refrigerated?All of them can go in the cupboard. Where do you think people kept their mustard and pickles before they had fridges (only about 50 years ago), none of these are new-fangled foods after all.

Pickles -people have been pickling things for centuries precisely because it preserves foods, so why would you need to put them in the fridge? Ketchup is a preserve too, just look at how much vinegar and sugar is in it. Made mustard has vinegar in too.

Sorry to bang on but really, what has happened to our common sense about these things?

Ok point one - people used to keep things in an unheated pantry, and would not have had double glazing or central heating. Now people keep things in the kitchen which is most likely toasty warm so things will spoil much quicker.

Point two - the OP posted asking for advice not a lecture, surely it's better for people to ask if they don't know rather than chucking things out. Everyone has to learn, and there's no need to have attitude about it because then people won't want to ask questions. And that's what the forum is all about after all!

purpleivy

It depends on your kitchen. Our heating pipes/hot water pipes go right under some of the kitchen cupboards. I have tried to make these the ones that have things like crockery in them. Great place for yeast dough to rise! We don't have a pantry and we do have an open plan living area with underfloor heating, so the kitchen is usually warm. This means that I keep more stuff in the fridge than I would really like.

Contrasting now, my mum's kitchen has a pantry. THe kitchen is unheated, though the boiler is in the top corner. Keeps the chill off, but as you know, warm air rises. This is a good thing, as the laundry airer hangs from the ceiling. So she keeps all sorts of things in her pantry that I keep in the fridge.

We have a cellar, that would be the perfect temperature for some of these things, but it's too far down the concrete steps to want to do that all the time!

purpleivy

Hmm, just had a thought...home pickled items are usually in a stronger vinegar solution than shop bought. If you look at purchased items they usually feature water. My mum never put water in her pickled beetroot etc! So hers would presumably keep better.

rosieben

I keep opened jam/maramalade/mayo/salad cream/tartare/horseradish in the fridge. I don't use any of them quickly enough to stop them going off or going mouldy. Pickles/ketchup/brown sauce/pickle I keep in the cupboard.

I'd love an old fashoned pantry with a marble slab!

EagerLearner

Hi everyone - I roasted a chicken on Friday, then stirfried some of the leftovers on Sunday which we have been eating in Mexican wraps etc. Today (Tuesday) the final remainder are being used up.
Would it be safe to leave it longer given it's all cooked and stored in tupperware?

Kadeeae

rosieben wrote: »

......I'd love an old fashoned pantry with a marble slab!

Ooo, me too! One can dream, eh?

zara*elise

My MIL had one of these in their house a pantry that was on the outside wall. It was the coldest room in the whole house! Oh, and that was before her son (not my DH) ripped it out to make way for a playroom for their kids.

Sacrilege!

As for what to keep in the fridge, I love cold ketcup with chips etc. A toastie isn't the same with warm (yuk) ketchup.

I've alwasy thought that the product labels have instructions on what to keep refridgerated? While ketchup & mayo etc wasn't really refridgerated as such back in the day, it was also prepared and made differently to how it's made now. It's possible that the nature of ingredients used in pickled onions/jams/ketchup etc have changed, or are even completely omitted completely now (think about the salt levels in meals 10 years ago compared to today) meaning that ketcup made in the 50s isn't the same as the ketcup made today, which would mean it not store well unless refridgerated. While we all love a lecture :rolleyes: things have changed, and it's not all about common sense, as THINGS CHANGE! Therfore what was deemed common sense in the 20s would be considered archaic by today's standards.

I would just follow the recommendations on the pack. keeping things in the cupboard may save space, but what you save on space you may have to end up sending when the products don't last as long.

thriftlady_2

Kadeeae wrote: »

Aw, Thirftlady, please don't yell at me, you're one of my 'hero's' on this board

!

Oh no! I didn't mean to shout at you Kadeeae! Please forgive me:kisses3: My rant was directed at the manufacturers for telling us what to do. Sorry, I wrote without really checking how my post had come across -very, very sorry.

I had to check my ketchup and mustards to see why you were asking. I had no idea they were supposed to go in the fridge!

Here's an interesting thing I have a jar of mustard, a French brand bought here the label of which says it must be refrigerated and I have a jar of the same mustard which I bought in France and there are no instructions to refrigerate. The French people are evidently allowed to make their own decisions about their food.

I feel really angry that the govt, food manufacturers, health and flaming safety people (everyone really:D)have taken away our right to make up our own minds about this sort of thing. I hate instructions about dates and storage on jars and packets and like to ignore them whenever I can. I take great delight in making my own preserves not just 'cos they taste nice but because they don't have dates on them. -actually my damson chutney says 'don't eat until late November;)

I'll tell you what really annoys me- those bags of frozen veg which have little dotted lines on a corner and 'open here' written next them. I always turn the bag upside down and open it the other end. I'm such a rebel:p -they can't tell me what to do......mutter mutter, grump grump..

ubamother

I remember around Christmas time people were up in arms about Sainsbury's turkeys having pop-up 'you are cooked' thermometers - "who needs this", "we know when turkey is cooked and are patronised by this" comments etc. etc. From another point of view - if this gives somebody the confidence to cook a turkey rather than buying a bernard matthew roast isn't it a good thing and those who are confident to cook can simply take it out?

I'm pretty sure all the 'keep in the fridge' instructions are actually part of a hard-nosed marketing ploy a la Sunny Delight, not a health-and-safety-gone-made-let's sue-somebody issue, and has been devised to give people the impression that the product is 'fresh' and that 'fresh' is seen as better than 'safely preserved'.

International food suppliers are in business to make money first, and to feed us second. Feeding us well comes a lot further down the business plan!