Huge row with DH over food safety - who is BU?

[namechange294824]

NC'ed on the off chance this is outing!

DH and I are both 34. We've been in the process of moving house over the past 2 months, and are finally in a position to have guests in the house (i.e. we have a dining table and chairs). Moving hasn't been without its challenges and there have been some really stressful bits, but on the whole it's been fairly straightforward, and we don't have kids.

Invited DH's parents (mid/late 60s) to dinner on Tuesday night. I offered to cook. I prepared a starter, a main, and a dessert on Monday night, ready to go in the fridge for ease of serving quickly on Tuesday (I was going to be getting in from work only 20 mins or so before they arrived so it made sense to pre-prepare.) I spent 3.5 hours cooking/baking on Monday, which wiped out my entire post-work evening. No drama; I'd offered to do it, and I enjoy cooking.

But throughout this 3.5 hours DH could not help himself from repeatedly putting his head round the door and being critical - why hadn't I done X? Was I going to bother putting Y in the bin or is it going to be left on the side forever? So on, so forth. I asked him to stop, and he didn't. He probably whinged at me 5 times about separate trivial things whilst I was cooking.

The main dish needed a long while in the oven. It was 9.15pm at this point and he had totally exhausted me with his bitching and griping. I told him I just wanted to shower and go to bed and asked him to take the food out of the oven once the timer went off, which would have been at 10pm.

He did that. But he then failed to put it in the fridge, leaving it out overnight on the countertop. He was watching telly until about midnight, well after the point it would have cooled enough to go in the fridge.

I was so furious in the morning that after a night of whinging and sniping at me he'd not even had the thought to properly put away the food I'd spent so long cooking.

His position: the food's fine, it had foil on it anyway, just crack on and serve it tonight

My position: it's a meat dish (with pork in) and I don't feel comfortable serving it to his parents who are in their 60s after it's been left out overnight in the middle of August

He cancelled the dinner plans, and told his mum it was because we'd had an argument (which we had, I guess, but now I feel really humiliated and almost ashamed that their evening was spoiled because of us).

So... who is BU?

This is nonsense.

Maybe I'm just too food lax. I don't even 'refrigerate' some of my food! I leave food out all night and then the next day and eat it for dinner!

What are you talking about? Modern farmed pork, thoroughly cooked, has no more likelihood of giving you food poisoning than any other meat. Please stop it with the old wives tales that might have applied to pork 100 years ago but are completely irrelevant now.

A grown adult does not need telling to put cooked food that includes meat into the fridge.

Quite a few grown adults on here do .

You are both being unreasonable.

I’ve eaten chicken left out overnight loads of times and still live to tell the tale. It’s not a massive deal. But also he is ridiculous to cancel over this.

Actually it’s correct. The cooking process will have negated any bacteria present and as long as the food is covered while cooling, putting in the fridge the following morning is the safest option as it will be fully cooled.

If this pork was in the oven for quite a long time, long enough that all pathogens that potentially come with the meat are killed, which pathogenic bacteria do you think will grow in that brief window of time that pork dish (covered, I assume) was sitting on the kitchen bench unchilled?

i wouldnt care bout the food-so much,woulda made something fresh aanyway i think....but cancel cos and escalate from being a row to being a full drama is arsehole material.

I might have eaten it myself depending on temp of kitchen but I wouldnt have served it to guests. Honestly I would have got a take away to serve with the pudding at that point. Cancelling is ridiculous.
Next time he invites his parents over tell him he is in charge of feeding them since he is the expert.

It would have been eaten in our house. Left to cool overnight and put in fridge in morning. Then thourghly reheated. Growing up the turkey at Christmas was never put in fridge but put in the pantry which to be fair was very cool. Food was left a lot overnight. Not sure how we all avoided food poisoning.

We always leave meat stews out overnight in the pot it was cooked, then heat on the stove for lunch

No, quite a few grown adults know that it’s dangerous to put hot or warm food into the fridge, which is what would have happened. We also know that pork is no different to any other meat and that if the meat is fresh and cooked right through, the cooking process negates any bacteria present. So it would have been fine to leave covered, out to cool properly overnight and then refrigerated the next morning.

I would have done exactly what your DH did. It would have been quite a bit later that the meat was cool enough to put in the fridge, and I wouldn't have wanted to wait up.

If DH hadn't been annoying you, would you really have stayed up to do this?

I think this was an awful lot of work for a weekday evening when you were already tired after work, and your desire to impress perhaps overrode your common sense about what might be sensible to offer?

At 65 your immune system has dropped and you are more vulnerable to food poisoning. They might be in good health, but in good health, for their 60's. Our bodies age, we are still expected to carry on working and given statins etc so we don't die. But we are still aging internally.
I could and would have fed my DP (57) it, but it would have wiped me out for a couple of days. It shouldn't be served before giving someone the heads up.

I cannot say who's being unreasonable and why,
because I never have been neither will I be in this situation.
Hosting and cooking, baking for 3,5 h to have my husband bitching - no, don't know that one.

What a childish mardy arse! Does he have any redeeming features?

Unless the in laws have specific health conditions that make them more vulnerable I would have served it. I would have put in fridge in the morning and heated it carefully before serving. It would likely have been too hot to put in the fridge at midnight.

But his interfering sounds really annoying and I would have gone ballistic at that.

My husband and I do bicker a lot about things we don't agree on though and he also criticises my kitchen practices so I feel your pain, it's so stressful.

Why would it have wiped you out if there was nothing wrong with it ? It stood out for a few hours while it cooled down. Potentially it would have done a lot more harm if you’d put it in the fridge hot or warm.

I would eat it myself but not serve to other people especially pensioners!

He should have sorted out an alternative even if it was takeaway with a confession about what he did!

Excellent point.

You are not being unreasonable and to be honest he shouldn't have cancelled and he should have cooked something else as it was his fuck up. Common sense says food needs to be out in the fridge over night.

You do realise you’ve got all the armchair experts googling like mad now don’t you !! Stay tuned for the smarty pants that finds one !!

2 hours yes, following morning not. It’s not bacteria landing on the food that is the problem, it is bacteria in the food multiplying in warm and moist conditions. Refrigeration after 2 hours cooling stops this process. It has nothing to do with foil.

Yes of course people have left food out overnight and been fine but it is a risk I would minimise by not doing it. Food poisoning is rising in this country and can be fatal.
Here is just one report from earlier this year.
www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/06/people-in-england-facing-food-poisoning-russian-roulette-as-illnesses-soar

You are right but its bad for anyone not just people in their 60s .obviously you think of them as ancient abd vulnerable
Sure they'd love to know that