In laws playing it fast and loose with refrigeration - who is right?

[spatchcock]

Went to stay with the in laws this weekend. Got up on Saturday morning and went to have some toast with jam. MIL points me towards the cupboard. In the cupboard there are four pots of jam - three are mouldy and one has just been opened. I cleared out the green jams and after using the unmouldy one went to put it back in the fridge but MIL says 'Oh no - it goes in the cupboard.' Right, ok... not going to argue, not my house or my jam.

At midday, FIL comes back with the shopping. Everything gets tidied away except for a joint of pork, which gets left on the side. A few hours later MIL and I are pottering about in the kitchen and I see the pork is still out and ask if I should put it away. "Oh I've got it, don't worry," MIL says. She puts it in the (unlit) oven in preparation for the Sunday roast.

I go to bed thinking about the pork, imagining the bacteria multiplying endlessly and wondering if any of it could possibly harm my incubating (31-week) PFB. My own mother is absolutely fastidious about refrigeration to the point of obsessive. A ten minute trip to the supermarket necessitates several chilly bins and a game plan. Bacteria is Satan and Mum is a missionary of hygiene. I thought I was nothing like her (I eat things off the floor), but something has obviously rubbed off on me because it takes me a while to get to sleep.

The next day the oven is turned on at midday - 24 unrefrigerated hours after the pork first made its appearance in the kitchen.

I ate it - MIL cooked the shit out of it so any bacteria (along with any nutrients) were probably killed off. MIL has also raised three strapping sons. One of them, my DP, says he can't remember any incidents of food poisoning, and that meat has always been treated this way in his house.

I find this bizarre. It seems completely abnormal to me to leave meat lying around for a whole day in warm spring temperatures but DP thinks I'm overreacting.

So who is being unreasonable? Me with my bacterial awareness or MIL with her germy breeding grounds?

MIL. Even though I don't eat meat and can't stand cold jam and am probably not the best judge.

dont eat meat myself, but am surprised it doesnt get put in the fridge when cool

glad to hear no incidents, you take your chances sorry it keeps you awake but it would me, too

mil i'm afraid - total germ b reeding situation. don't know what to suggest though, unless you can turn into a veggie pronto until your baby is born.

Jam - no problem but meat big problem imo

jam is better out of the fridge...but meat is a big no no for me

YANBU

DH would have a dead faint at the jam let alone the pork but then he's (very) funny about stuff like that. A bit of bacterisa doesn't do yopu any harm but she does seems to be cultivating her own strains somewhat!

You are being a bit over cautious. People managed long before fridges were a staple part of every house. An oven is sealed, so things will stay relatively cooler in there if the door is closed. Once cooking, the heat will kill off any surface bacteria that may have been there.

Your mum sounds like she is way OTT with worrying about things.

We never keep jam, ketchup, or any other preservative in the fridge, it really doesnt need it. Sugar stops it from going mouldy, or certainly should do. Even if there is a bit of mould on the top of jam, the product underneath would actually be fine anyway, the same as if a piece of cheese has mould, you just cut it off and eat the non-mouldy bit. :)

Meat YANBU but who the hell keeps jam in the fridge?

Jams fine in the cupboard-I'd even go so far as to say if you scrape the mould off the jam underneath is fine
Meat-completely different it should have been put in the fridge/cool place, I just wouldn't have eaten it.

Not sure I would do this but tbh I don't think there's really an issue - as long as she cooks it all the way through then any bacteria are going to be killed off aren't they? It would be different if it was rare beef or something like this not cooked through properly but in the situation you describe it would be fine

MIL. And of course jam goes in the fridge when it's been opened, DP, because otherwise it gets mouldy. Ewww. Eating stuff with mould spores on it is not good for you. And as for the pork, ew ew ew.

my MIL's kitchen is home to a whole developed civilization of small humanoids, such is the advanced level of filth. I suspect the lack of food poisoning over the years is the result of her, like your MIL, cooking the shit out of everything. I think we are all a bit uptight about stuff, though would prefer meat in fridge!

That would have been a big no no, I would have put the pork straight in the fridge, and if served the pork next day would have eaten the rest of the dinner and not the pork. why did you not get up in the night and put it in the fridge . I guess your ILs might have come from the days where there were no fridges, how did people store meat then?

Oh and I keep jam in the fridge, not sure why but I do

Count yourself lucky. We often go to visit in-laws on a Thursday, staying til Sunday. When we arrive, she has already peeled and chopped all the veg she we will be eating for the entire weekend. I know this because I can see it all waiting on the kitchen counter. It's got kitchen roll draped over the top of it - must be special germ-repelling kitchen roll I suppose.

Well we're not great jam eaters, one pot lasts us about 6 months and I have never ever seen a mould spot in it. And I wont eat bread over 2 days old because I'm scared of mould.

I think the answer is somewhere in the middle, but I'm leaning towards your MIL.

Mouldy jam never hurt anyone - ditto mouldy bread (who hasn't picked blue bits off a bread roll desperately needed for a packed lunch? Oh, just me then).

Meat/fish I would be a bit more careful with, especially in the summer, although a fresh joint of pork would probably take several hours to get to room temperature and (as you say), it did have the life cooked out of it.

But I'm a great believer in the saying "if it looks good, smell it; if it smells good, taste it; if it tastes good - EAT IT" and I never look at use-by dates.

Thanks for your replies. In the days before refrigerators people used cellars or safes (think that's what they called them) that would've been cooler. The average house is a bit warmer now, too.

I've always put jam in the fridge, it says to on the jar. I'm not bothered about use by dates or mould usually, but I am being a bit more careful about this kind of thing now that I'm pregnant.

I hope my mum never gets an invite to the in laws' place, she would have some kind of episode, poor dear.

Was the pork still in its wrapper/plastic when she first put it away in the oven? If it was in one of those shrink wrapped covers or in a tub, those things are sealed and sterilised, so there should be very few bacteria to start multiplying. Even in an ordinary plastic bag that would reduce the amount of air reaching it and slow down the bacteria multiplying.

Things keep longer in the fridge, but as someone down the thread said, we used to keep meat in meat safes (very like an unlit oven) before fridges. Things just didn't last as long, but 24 hours is probably fine.

As for jam, cold jam is an abomination. Also cold ketchup.

MIL definitely re the pork, the jam, not so much. I keep jam in the cupboard, but it does get thrown if it goes mouldy.

I would like to point out that you shouldn't just cut/scrape off the mould and the rest is fine - the spores and bacteria causing the mould can go deeper into the food without being visible, so even if you cut off what you can see, chances are you'll still be eating it.

Thanks BeerTricks!

Jam will keep better in the fridge but you can see when it's off because it goes mouldy so it's no big deal to keep it in the cupboard. It will just go mouldy sooner.

As for meat, I would have put the pork in the fridge overnight and taken it out a couple of hours before cooking to bring it up to room temperature (to get the best results from cooking). However, no bugs are going to survive the temperature that pork needs to be at to be safe to eat so don't worry about it. Of course, any leftovers do need to go in the fridge.

Yes the pork was in a vaccuum-sealed wrapper, and I think it still was when it went into the oven.

Apparently the number of bacteria doubles every 20 minutes after one hour out of the fridge. Ew!