To be twitchy about this hygiene?

[cinnamongirl1976]

We are at MIL's house for Easter. She's lovely, but has odd food hygiene. Yesterday, she went to the fishmonger to get fish for tea. First thing. The fish did not go into the fridge - it sat on the side until it was cooked just before 7pm. There was some smoked haddock that went into a pan of water, intended for 3yo DD. That also sat on the side all day. I managed to make up an excuse for her not to have it, but it is still out there now (did not go into the fridge). MIL says DD can have it tonight. AIBU to just cook her some pasta instead? There is no way in the world I would want her to eat fish that will have been unrefrigerated for about 36 hours by teatime. Mentioned this to DH and his reaction was "it'll be cooked, what's the problem?". Am I missing something here? I was quite shocked.

My MIL is like that. At Christmas they left all the Christmas dinner meat out over night and ate it the next day. They say the meat tastes better when it's 'matured' a bit, erm you mean rotten!!

Sounds like my ex-(phew)-mother-in-law too! She'd travel 7 hours to see us (which was lovely of her to do) with a cooked joint of meat wrapped in nothing but a carrier bag in the passenger foot well of the car! She'd do this every time she came to stay, despite the fact that I always had food ready for when PIL arrived, and FIL being vegetarian! I used to serve her up some of her sweaty-warm-meat alongside the meal I'd cooked and recycle the rest.

36 hour old unrefrigerated fish would not be consumed by me or mine either yanbu.

""PS I didn't put it into the fridge because I feel I can't really interfere!""

Your MIL has out of date practices with food, my Mum was the same. Everyone on the family gently taught her how she should be storing and binning modern food.

If it isn't mentioned, it won't change and it was a shame that food was wasted.

You really should have just said that DDs fish needed to be in the fridge.

In the days of fresher food, no heating, single glazed Windows, droughts etc, you could leave fish out of the fridge and did so with the Turkey, I still have a larder (now unused) in my house.

I do think that generation is a bit more hardy, though.

I'm surprised the fish hasn't started to smell yet! Theres no way we would be eating it. The older generation certainly have some different ideas on food than us, if it's just meat and fish that you wish to avoid while visiting, tell them you've decided to give it up for a while and see how you get on. They can't make you eat it.

you should put things in the fridge OP.
Interfere, Just educate her. She cant be that old surely. once you have told her it will be a weight off your mind.

I believe you can put the turkey in the garage, boot of car, at Christmas before you cook it, ie. you should bring it up to room temperature.
but after its cooked, unless you are living in freezing conditions. it should be in a fridge
over Christmas I have been known to leave milk outside, in the cold, since it can be just as cold as a fridge.

I think yabu for making excuses! You need to tell her, kindly, your views and why that means you, and your family won't eat anything that isn't properly refrigerated.
You can't expect her to change what she does for herself, but you can be clear about what she needs to do to cater for you and your dc.
I think you should have told her your reasons (or 'interfered' if you prefer) rather than let the fish go to waste. (If she wants she could've frozen the fish for herself.) If you don't tell her, this problem is only going to come up again and again, which makes it your fault, not hers as you know the problem and she doesn't know there's anything wrong.

I think there's a tendency, when looking at food hygiene practices, to confuse the likelihood of getting food poisoning with the consequences if you do, as well. I've had this conversation with DH, who, to be fair, has now learned to be a bit more cautious.

It isn't about the number of times you can get away with pink chicken, reheated food, etc without being ill ("I've had it loads of times, and I've always been fine"). It's about how serious it can be if you do get food poisoning (particularly if you're tiny or elderly).

*I don't mean we never reheat food. Of course we do. But YKWIM.

If it were ok, surely the fishmongers wouldn't put all their fish on ice, and supermarkets wouldn't have all their meat in chillers, wouldn't they?

Just point that out each time.

Admittedly Christmas time is quite cold and if frozen they can take days to defrost and I can't imagine a garage is warm but fish. Although that said my mother used to pop things to defrost in a cupboard when she went to work and cook them in the evening (I grew up in the tropics) and I have the constitution of an ox, I went around India eating streetfood and even the odd salad and never even got slightly ill.

I am quite lax and my kitchen is quite cool so I wouldn't have bothered too much about it being left out during the day.... Overnight and into the next evening is pushing it though!

Tell your DH that sometimes the full story does not matter only the resulting concern.

But unless you want this to continue you need to be clear "no mil DD will not be eating that fish it has been stored incorrectly this makes it dangerous I do not want her to be at risk of food poisoning"

Those of you worried about the xmas turkey being left in a garage - do you realise that the birds are killed, plucked and then left hanging in a barn at the farm for days before being despatched to the butcher? I used to do turkey plucking at xmas as a teen, and it put me off eating them for years. A few days in a garage is neither here nor there in the grand scheme of things. Even worse for game. The local farm used to have a big bunch of pigeons and pheasants hanging up by the back door. It made delivering their morning paper a little grim.

Back to the OP, fish sat in a warm kitchen all day is disgusting. It would stink, and I'd certainly not eat it.

This thread has got me thinking, I have guests for lunch at 1.pm. Am roasting two chickens with new potatoes and lots of salads. The chickens are ready (seasoned, rubbed, stuffed with garlic and lemon, oiled etc) and are sat on the side ready to go in the oven at 11.30. Have been sat there about 20 mins now. I never put stone cold, straight from the fridge meat into the oven (it messes up the cooking time). Is this wrong??

** I wouldn't eat the fish today, might have last night but not today.

When I worked in M & S food hall, if a customer got to the checkout with an item from the fridges/freezers and then decided they didn't want it, it was thrown away as we didn't know how long they had been walking round with it

janeymoo you are fine and right, better at room temperature

Yukko. Mil leaves cooked sausage rolls out on the side at Xmas. They're still there for eating 12 hours later.. I thought 2 hours at room temp was the limit for cooked food, let alone uncooked food!

I'm fairly relaxed about these things - don't worry too much about use by dates if it looks ok etc and I'd happily leave a turkey in a cold garage for several days before cooking. However i would not be allowing DC to eat fish that hasn't been refrigerated for more than about 12hrs.

Ode folk are odd about food practices! My dm defrosts at room temp. I now joke if she's defrosting day where? In the airing cupboard Christmas turkey treatment is questionable. Now she does buy a smaller one so it does fit in fridge but once cooked it does hang around for days often in out place ie cold but not fridge cold in a little foil jacket she never puts her home made sausage rolls in fridge. Most of the time I'm too greedy to care but I wish she wouldn't. I'm sure I've always got the runs when I go him after Christmas stay!

Fish is always kept in the fridge in our house.
Otherwise the cat pinches it.

My mother is like this and frequently gives herself food poisoning. And then wonders why. She also thought that the date stamp on milk was when it was delivered, not a best before date until I showed her a bottle with a date 4 days from that day. And she thought use by dates applied on opened packets. It's a nightmare to explain but fortunately I limit the damage to myself when I stay by being vegetarian. And by putting things in the fridge "in case the cat gets it".

I'm very relaxed about food hygiene and would be OK with smoked fish (not fresh) left out a couple of hours for me. But not:

36 hours
For DD
In water (yuk) rather than wrapped

Is the kitchen cold?

Thanks for your replies. Interesting to hear others' views and perhaps I was being unreasonable not saying anything. But I do get worried about hurting people's feelings.

Fish update - it was cooked at 2pm and has been sitting in the warm water ever since! The kitchen is fairly cool but still. I'm definitely not comfortable with DD eating that (I wouldn't eat it either). Feel a bit funny about MIL cooking anything for DD now, though as luck would have it I'm cooking tonight now! Feel so unkind typing all of this as she really is lovely but it just made me feel quite uncomfortable!

Your MIL is probably a lost cause, especially if you're not close enough to feel comfortable just telling her that DD won't be eating food that she's left out all day because of the higher risk of food poisoning.

If your DH doesn't understand though, explain it to him.

Bacteria have the potential to split every 20 minutes at room temperature. So the number of bacteria can double every 20 minutes. That's a huge amount of bacteria over the course of 36 hours. And though most of the bacteria will likely be killed during cooking, that quantity will be leaving a huge amount of toxins on the food. Every living thing excretes waste. Those toxins can't be killed by cooking and can make someone very ill. And to be frank, if MIL's food hygiene standards are that poor, I wouldn't trust that she'd bring the food to the right temperature to kill most of the bacteria anyway.