To get irate at mil's bbq hygiene?

[FleurDelacoeur]

BBQ planned for later today. Prawns and chicken sitting out on the worktop as there's no room for them in the fridge.

Fridge full of new potatoes and corn on the cob.

Chicken and prawns now in fridge and veg on worktop. MIL not impressed. It's going to be a king afternoon.

This post hits home. My own mother has ghastly food hygiene. Repulsive.

My husband was staying with her for a couple of days and she left a fresh pizza out on the worktop for 2 days for him to eat. He eventually flung it over the fence in to a field.

We won't eat anything at my mum's now. It's so grim. You were not unreasonable OP.

Mil got shirty with op for safeguarding guests from eating rotten food.
That makes her an arsehole in my book.
I've had food poisoning because of people like her. It was excrutiatingly painful.

A friend of a friend has just been hospitalised with food poisoning through eating prawns that had not been refrigerated. Very unwise indeed to not refrigerate :-(

YANBU OP, prawns and chicken definitely need keeping chilled. I can’t understand anyone putting vegetables in the fridge and not shellfish/chicken etc. BBQs can be dodgy.

My worst BBQ memory is of the one where the host threw a whole chicken on the grill, ie all in one piece, not cut up, not sliced through the middle and opened out. He was offended when my DH remarked that it wouldn’t cook properly all the way through like that, as apparently he always did it that way and nobody had died!

This is precisely why when I attend a party/gathering/function whatever I won’t touch;

Anything fish, anything chicken and anything egg, in fact only meat I most likely take a chance on is beef, unless I know the caterer completely and how they do things in general.

Agree with you OP, prawns are the one thing that you just can’t take a chance on. Your MIL is probably just upset as she will see it as you taking it as her incompetent.

I wouldn’t be eating the prawns and chicken at that BBQ though .

Hope you enjoy the day though, be a shame to fall out over food and a fridge.

So did you tell her what to do Op, or tactfully suggest it might be an idea to swap things around? Whilst I agree that leaving chicken and prawns out of the fridge for any length of time is not a good idea, if you huffed and puffed and did it without asking, I can see why she might take offence.

I was maybe 12 when we bought our first fridge, my mother didn’t understand the point of them. Milk was delivered daily and she cooked from fresh every day, so daily trips to the store. Roast beef was the only left overs and it was kept in the panty for a few days until eaten.

It was when I returned to England - when she was in her 80’s, I noticed she had unsavory habits. If I made a big pot of something to last a few days she wouldn’t allow it into the fridge, yet her fridge was full of things that didn’t need to be there, such as baked goods. She also had opened uncovered tins of cat and dog food that stunk up the fridge. I found it revolting.

Eeek. This is my idea of hell! I'd be trying to leave.. I am an emetophobe and overly anxious mind!

Yes meat and fish chilled in the fridge, coming out just before being thrown on the BBQ. I always cook the chicken in the oven first for a bit, and finish it off on the BBQ so that it has cooked through properly.

Do not eat the chicken or prawns.

I'd be nipping out, as a pp said

Yuck.

Tbh I wouldn’t dream of telling someone where to put their stuff in their own house, and as for moving it I’d probably go with not eating it

You'd rather watch while an entire party was poisoned?

Who me? That’s a strange question. Why would you expect me to take on that view? For a start, I wouldn’t think they’d be poisoned. If you cook chicken throughly you will kill any dangerous bacteria.

But food poisoning can have life changing concequences it’s not funny!

Prawns, shell fish and chicken all need cooling and cooking properly.

I would stick to the salad myself

I'm generally very chilled out about food hygiene but know what's risky and what's not. Chicken and prawns left out in heat is not ok.

Dh has taken over the bbq duties from FIL Who can't cook for toffee. He's making sure chicken is piping hot right through.

Of course yanbu, no way would I be eating chicken or prawns that were left to sit out for hours on a warm day. It's basic food hygiene that any adult should know.

forget the bbq put it in the oven-all stuff now has that recommended on instructions anyway

I hate it when people say oh, everyone's always been OK or make generalisations. You never know about the health of people - what might be OK for one person might not be OK for another, and what's "always been OK" in the past or people have gotten away with they might not get away with now. Just because someone else isn't affected by it doesn't mean everyone will be that lucky, food poisoning is not something to mess around with.

I got food poisoning from eating corn on the cob ... worst I've ever had too.

Yep apparently salad can be one of the worst too :/

I always thought everyone was being fussy until i experienced it myself. I literally thought I was going to die, and it tookover a year to feel fully ok again (and not 100% sure I actually do feel fully back to how i was before)

Meat needs to be at room temperature before it is cooked. Your MIL is right.

YANBU, me and my DC got ill last year at a BBQ through poor hygiene and now im very paranoid whilst at one

In reality for a few hours it was probably fine, OTOH yes it does make sense to refrigerate raw meet over veg. That said it depends how you handled it. If you said "ooo I'm just going to swap these into the fridge, I'm really paranoid about meat and BBQs" that's fine. If you said "oh my god that's so gross you're going to give everyone food poisoning I literally can't believe you did this" then you're going to get her on the defensive and piss her off.