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?

If mould in cupboard jam is caused by a buttery, crumby knife, why is it that peanut butter, jam, marmite and nutella don't seem to go mouldy in the cupboard? (Although nutella only lasts about a day if I am in the house ).

peanut butter is not actually anything like dairy butter :)

Don't know Kittychat if all jars are regularly used I wouldn't have thought any of them should go mouldy, as you'd be constantly eating the bit off the top? Its a true observation though, I've never witnessed mouldy marmite/nutella/putter.

My mother's record on mad rancid food was a tin of pineapple from 1983... discovered in 2009. Sentimental fool.

Yes, squeaky, but neither is jam! I was asking about the buttery knife causing contamination. I have had a jar of honey in the cupboard for about a year and there is no mould...

Good point - it says on honey, pb etc to store them in a cool, dry place (ie, pantry). It says on jam to refrigerate. I know if I opened all of these things and put them in the cupboard, it would only be the jam that went mouldy.

Honey is far too sweet to go mouldy. Sugar is a preservative - jam hasn't got enough sugar in to go mouldy. Dunno about peanut butter, but it is quite oily (nut oil and added oil, usually), and oil is a preservative too. But I expect it has preservatives in there too, as if you make home-made nut butter it'll go rancid fairly fast.

Isn't honey one of those magic super foods that are supposed to take forever to go mouldy?

DH and I are both on the same page on how to store food, and uncooked meat would go in the fridge. When its cooked, we allow to cool, strip off from the bone, store on a plate and foil wrap it for storage. We try to be careful with the portions we buy though to avoid lots of let overs, as a country we do throw away so much food.

RE sell by dates / use by dates... DH is quite happy to use meat that is past its date or on its date, unless it is chicken. He has a real issue with chicken dates. I tend to go with the smell test.

One area we do disagree is eggs. To fridge or not to fridge? Its one of those annoying things you buy that is not in the fridge at the shop, but there are special places for it in the fridge?! Though over Easter, we did keep the eggs in the cupboard, as the egg holder in the fridge was filled with cream eggs

yes, honey is magic.
bees don't have fridges

when I was growing up we had a wonderful north-facing larder with a meat safe. My mother hated it because it was so dark and had it replaced with a lovely light one - duh!

I wonder how many people are so reliant on fridges they don't do the sniff test on meat that has been in the fridge and is within date. The only off meat I have ever had is a chicken that was within date and I had kept it in the (correctly regulated) fridge. I only discovered it was off because I let it come to room temp before cooking and the smell that had been muted at fridge temp got going spectacularly.

You are reliant on dates being correct and the chill chain being kept up before the meat gets to you and we know from fly-on-the-wall supermarket documentaries that this doesn't always happen.

my only food poisoning experience was rice in a restaurant, exactly as Saggy says. Went with a big group of people (dh's dept from work) and the ones that had had the noodles were fine.

I don't bother putting eggs in the fridge. I do put jam in the fridge but that's because we hardly ever use it and it does make it last longer. If you have to scrape the mould off the top each time then you're just wasting jam.

I don't pay meticulous attention to best-before dates. If it looks ok and smells ok then it'll be probably be ok. Annoyingly, my DCs will refuse to eat a yoghurt that's so much as a day past the date

I never put eggs in the fridge. They are not kept in the fridge in a shop, and they should be at room temperature when you use them too.

I have seen mouldy honey, but that WAS due to a dirty knife I think... well when I dissected the remains I'm sure I recognised toast crumbs.

Our kitchen is cold (perfect pastry making temp - if I could be bothered) so not much goes off.

My Mum's hygiene practices are . When we eat there, we all end up with upset stomachs. Mum has constant upset stomachs. It is vile.

Good god. I would NEVER leave meat unrefrigerated, least of all pork and poultry.

I have to ask WHY? Pure laziness? No room in fridge? Weird.

If you lot know what went on behind the scenes in abbatiors, food packing plants and supermarkets you would combust on the spot!

I keep jam in the fridge, because the cleaner puts in there and it was a fruitless battle to try and keep it anywhere else.

heh heh heh

My mum keeps VINEGAR in the fridge. Since when has that ever gone off?

If this were a commercial restaurant kitchen and the food hygiene inspectors paid a visit and saw mouldy jam and meat left in a warm atmosphere for 24 hours they would order it to be shut down immediately.

DP puts pickled onions/gherkins in the fridge, but sticks mayonnaise in the cupboard! Argh.

You should try going to my PILs where they HAVE no fridge. And buy all their meat from the reduced counter (which to be fair, so do we, but we cook/freeze immediately) and leave it around for another day or so until they're pissed enough to want to eat it.

We never put jam, honey or peanut butter in the fridge - cold peanut butter is like concrete. Eggs go in during hot weather but stay out otherwise (I think this is a Delia recommendation). But anything meaty, cooked or otherwise, is always chilled.

Anything in the freezer can stay there indefinitely (and frequently does).

We have to be really on the ball with dates as stuff from our local Sainsbury's seems to have a really short life (and we've accidentally bought out of date stuff before). We're not alone rummaging in the back of their shelves for the fresh stuff. But that's a whole new AIBU topic...

Sniff test is completely useless. Pathogenic bacteria - the ones that make you ill - don't smell and don't cause changes to the food.
Cooking the hell out of it won't necessarily do the trick either as some bacteria produce toxins which are nigh on impossible to kill with heat (certainly not possible in a domestic kitchen).
Jam is fine to keep in cupboard as it the available moisture has been absorbed by sugar meaning the bacteria has none to use for growth.

In that case Snowfalls, there is little you can do, as you would have no idea when you buy something if it has been left in the warm before going on the supermarket shelf, or in the shop.

slowshow. You asked why keep meat out of the fridge. Answer: (1) to marinade and/or cure it properly, (2) to enable it to cook properly. Not bringing meat to room temp before cooking means it won't taste as good. Same as carving a joint without letting the joint rest beforehand means it won't taste as good. Refridgeration and cooking both affect the blood distribution in meat.

You should try going to my PILs where they HAVE no fridge. And buy all their meat from the reduced counter (which to be fair, so do we, but we cook/freeze immediately) and leave it around for another day or so until they're pissed enough to want to eat it.

They sound bonkers! Are they like the person further upthread who said 'people in the past didn't have refrigeration so we shouldn't need it either'?!

I never said we dont need refrigeration. The point I was trying to make is that we rely without argument on refrigerators and best before dates. (among other things) many foods are chilled unnecessesarily. They are naturally preserved. And the have extra added preservatives.

You sound just as bonkers! :)