What's the oldest item you've found in your food cupboard?

PipneyJane · 21 March 2020 at 7:23PM

Luciecat63 said:

Hi, I have spices in my cupboard from the early 2000s, but still use them as they are in glass jars. I have also found a tin of pilchards and a pack of gluten free spaghetti, both dated BB December 2019. Do you think they are okay? - I plan to eat the pilchards myself so will take the risk, but I don't eat pasta (I bought it for a "friend" who then decided she didn't want it so I just popped it in my cupboard and left it there). I would like to offer the spaghetti locally but don't want to cause harm. Thanks in anticipation.

The pasta is dried, so should be fine to eat for several years to come. The pilchards are tinned, so sterile unless the tin is damaged. Again, they’ll last years. You can usually tell when a tin is damaged - it swells up.

To the original poster, probably the oldest thing in my cupboards is the huge tin of baking powder, best before the end of 2008. It’s still fine for baking, although a little lumpy, so sieving is required. (The last cake baked was a week ago.)

- Pip