...to have ham for dinner tonight after forgetting to put it in the fridge last night?

[MurkyMo]

OK, I had one of those vacuum packed big ham fillets for dinner last night. I had simmered it in cider etc for hours and we only ate about a quarter of it. I wrapped it up in tinfoil and left it by the fridge to be put in there once it had cooled. However I completely forgot and it was out all night on the kitchen counter. It went in first thing this morning, 5.00.

So would it be unreasonable to have it again for dinner tonight or am I risking poisoning myself and himself??!

Ham was always salted to preserve it though, so wasn't fresh.

I grew up in a house with an Aga, so the kitchen was always the warmest room in the house, which is where the ham lived. Either there or in the dining room which had an open fire. No one died or got food poisoning.

I am more cautious than my parents were but would still happily eat a ham that was still cooling down at bedtime and then refrigerated the next morning without even blinking.

No I wouldn't. Possibly at Christmas overnight I'd risk it but no way last night.

I had gastroenteritis as a teenager probably from a pack of ham and it was horrible, couldn't stop puking up green gunk so it's a no from me.

OK, so the husband ate it. That was 2 hours ago and so far, so good!

No - but I was brought up in a house without a fridge and suffered repeated bouts of sjckness and diarrhoea, which I've alwags put down to lack of refrigeration.

Meat begins to grow bacteria after 60 mins out of the fridge.

It's salted and soaked in alcohol. That's what people did before we had refrigeration to make meat last longer. I'd eat it.

The bacteria have to be there in numbers in the first place. Unlikely there were many on my ham considering it was simmering for hours and is stuffed full of nitrites and nitrates anyway.

He's still alive !

Absolutely not!