Neighbour’s Christmas “Present”

[Warrior96]

So I really don’t know what to think of this my neighbours are in their 70’s they are perfectly healthy, sound minded and well off. They decided to give me a tin of biscuits for Christmas. The tin of biscuits came in a bag that heavily stunk of damp which at first I thought nothing off it and was grateful for the gift then I took the tape off the biscuits and realised the tape heavily stuck of damp which made me check the date, they went out of date the start of November. Then I realised the top of the tin said May 2023 🤦‍♀️ so they have just given me something they clearly didn’t want and has been sitting in their bungalow for 2 years!

If my neighbours hate me just give me nothing I will be happy I certainly don’t want food poisoning . Just Why?

YRBU - I should be happy with the “Christmas Gift”

Not Being Unreasonable- It was a thoughtless Gift

IMO it’d be no bad thing if the mentality of not wasting food made a bit of a comeback.

Yes, I agree. We throw so much stuff out these days.

Exactly.👍

My parents were born in 1929 & 1930 and had clear memories of the war years. It didn't end then, rationing & austerity continued well into the 1950's so it isn't just a wartime mentality..
As for sell-by or use-by dates, these were completely ignored by my parents as by the time they were introduced, they were fully aware of how long things lasted and how to check it it was edible or not.
To an extent I am exactly the same and will use those dates as a guide only and will always use my own judgment, the modern obsession of discarding food just because of a printed date has completely passed me by.

That said, I would not knowingly gift something without checking first and in this case I would have not given them.

I might be able to top this. I was asked to collect a raffle prize - hurray! It turned out to be a half eaten tin of M&S Merry Munch. Apparently everyone had their hands in it as they were next to the tea and coffee at the craft fair, where I bought the ticket and they thought it was perfectly ok to raffle the leftovers. Drove 25 min to get that!

And don’t forget that people born shortly after the war were raised by people who had just lived through the war, so would have been heavily influenced by them.

I think that's what a lot of people on this thread aren't getting. I was born in the 70s and was never allowed to waste food, because my parents were never allowed to waste food as children, and that carried over into their parenting. Maybe OPs neighbours are exactly like that, or maybe they're just crap at gifting.

My perfectly healthy,sound minded (ex) neighbour in her 70s once gave me a tin of Mark's and Spencer's biscuits for Christmas. Ooh lovely,I thought. Until I just happened to notice the best before date. They had gone out of date 4 years earlier. No,I didn't try eating them!

Every Christmas we all think “oh fuck we have to get them a present. “
In this instance you happen to be the “them”. The biscuits weren’t given in kindness.
Sorry.
😉😁😁.

Is it a best before or use by date? Is the tin nice? If it's a best before date then the biscuits will be fine, and if not and the tin is nice just give it a wash and use it to store your nice biscuits

Just bin em , and move along, not worth overthinking.

It’s just a tin of biscuits. Eat them or don’t. I imagine their intentions were all good. Mumsnet makes me so paranoid sometimes - people really do assume bad motives for everyday stuff. It’s such a weird mentality.

Rationing ended in 1954 btw.

And use by dates became common practice in the 80s. Thought m and s had started doing in the 50s.

Och my neighbours have occasionally given us a tin of roses that have some of the flavours eaten and some empty wrappers in and maybe a few Haribo in. We just laugh 🤭 they won’t have done it on purpose and they are so kind and generous all year round. They are frequent entertainers so they’re constantly being given stuff and won’t have looked closely. One year they gave us a bottle of rosé that was a much deeper colour than rosé, and on examination, it was a screwtop that was not intact. That one I did give back as I figured it was probably a homebrew but I just didn’t know what or when or who it came from and I didn’t want to pour it down the sink. Found out since that neighbour across the road makes jam and gin from berries in garden so it was probably one from him, that they just stuck in the general collection 😂

Damp out-of-date biscuits though…straight to the bin 🥴 Just give them a card and hopefully they will stop giving you “gifts” in future.

Agree. Biscuits aren't going to give you food poisoning, this isn't a big deal. Try them, don't try them, bin it, whatever.

No one is going to get food poisoning from biscuits that went out of date in November, don’t be ridiculous. If you don’t want them bin them, stop being dramatic

My dad does the sniff test, he'll take a packet of ham that is out of date, nearly put his nose on it, if it smells okay he'll offer me a ham sandwich (funny enough I'm never hungry after witnessing that little display). They don't realise they're out of date and sound like they're being nice so just say thanks and then throw them out or re-gift to someone you don't like 😊

See pps for why people in their 70s may still have a ‘thing’ about not wasting food, despite not having lived through WW2.

My parents are 85 and both remember the war
one was bombed by the Italians and not surprisingly it it their 1st memory

rationing went on until they were almost adult

Rationing ended in 1954

My parents are that age and they throw everything away. They buy everything in bulk and bin it before it goes out of date and buy three more to replace it.

The effect of rationing makes you worried about running out so you stockpile more than you otherwise would.

This sounds more like a lazy regift.

This!

Sadly I am now in this older category and my adult children seem convinced out of date food isn't safe.

I was alway taught (by war time grandparents who had lived through both wars) that certain food stuff was safe well past dates.

I still wouldn't knowingly give out of date food though. But I'd eat it myself.

I'd be more concerned about the potential of them living in damp conditions.. you wouldn't expect a tin of biscuits to be affected by damp, even if they are 2 years old.. 🤔