is it too late to still be eating the turkey and ham

[EleanorReally]

turkey cooked 25th naturally.
ham cooked 23rd and roasted 24th

No. If it looks and smells ok. I am using up dark meat in a pie (today) and a curry (tomorrow). Cooked Christmas Eve. And in fridge since.

Yes, 3 days after cooking and then it needs to be binned.

Today is last day for me, 4 days in fridge is my limit

Fine to eat if looks and smells OK.
I'm nearly 60 and not dead yet from eating 5/6 day old turkey.

I have however frozen off part of ours as I wouldn't expect it to last past New Year.

We will be finishing the last of the turkey tomorrow. I always strip the carcass as soon as possible after cooking and refrigerate so it’s never been left hanging around. We always have a lot left over and it makes a number of meals over Christmas. Never had any issues.

I'm going to have to use mine up tomorrow. We've still got meat left but are going out tonight, so will have to do a turkey curry tomorrow. It smells ok and and has been refrigerated since shortly after lunch on 25th.

Food waste is awful for the planet. If it smells ok, eat it!

Stripped bones and skin off immediately on Xmas day after dinner and refrigerated dark and light meat seperate. Had second roast dinner on 27th and froze the meat we didn’t use (straight from the fridge). Turkey cooked on 25th.

Ham I would think is okay as it’s highly processed.

Turkey no way I would be eating today after cooking 4 days ago especially if the meat is still attached to the bones.

I always strip the turkey off the bone , remove skin and pop in the fridge as soon as it’s cooled . Will be perfectly fine for 6 days after , as it has been for the 30 plus years I’ve been doing it like that . That said it’s only ever taken out of the fridge for 5 min to pop some on plates each day and never hangs around at room temperature. Same with the ham , although we always end up finishing that sooner .

Don't set arbitrary time limits on when things can and can't be eaten.

Has it been stored properly? i.e in the fridge
Does it look okay?
Does it smell okay?

If yes to all, eat it.

Anything else is just wasteful, particularly throwing away food simply because X days have passed.

Strip the carcass on 27th and freeze. Ham maybe a day or two later, I slice and freeze leftovers.

Why?

My in laws keep the turkey and other meats in the oven. And eat it until it’s finished. It was New Year’s Day once. It does not see a fridge at any point.

They do it with everything. Make a pot of chicken spaghetti sauce, which is left on the hob for a week, heated up each day and then just left there.

Sometimes, they will keep things in the microwave as it’s a magical barrier against the world.

I do not know how they have survived and I do. It eat at their house.

I do NOT eat at their house, even.

We don’t have arbitrary time limits. If it looks and smells ok, we’ll eat it.

Do they get sick?

Nope. Never.

Dh and his sister were fine growing up too.

Dh got really shitty at me when we first lived together and he tried the same shit, cooking a big pot of something and wanting to leave it out in the hob. He wouldn’t refrigerate it, I wouldn’t eat it.

He stopped that nonsense, thank god.

His sister still does it though. She works a lot so his mum will make her food for her and the children for the week.

Meals all left in the side of the kitchen (pies, veg etc), not put in the fridge as “it’s fiiiiiiine!” 🤮🤮

If it has been refrigerated it will be fine. I always say a week is my maximum but that is usually because I am utterly sick of the sight of it all by then, and the dog gets the leavings, but I ate the very last of the meat today, and the last of the veg will be bubble-and-squeaked tonight.

The cheese, on the other hand, is going to keep me going into 2026.

i agree, we have so much cheese!
so it looks like ham pasta for supper today and tomorrow

If it’s been properly stored it should be fine for 5 days.

@Bellagetdown this is like my mum! My DH always used to get ill whenever we went to her house for dinner (he won’t eat there anymore) but I am always fine. I think my stomach is hardened to it from growing up with that kind of food hygiene as standard. I remember the left over turkey was always stored in the utility room on top of the chest freezer with a bit of tin foil over it and it was used to make many meals in the days after Christmas. One year on Boxing Day, I went to open the chest freezer without turning the light on in the utility room, forgetting the turkey was on top, and the whole thing fell on the floor and smashed everywhere. So no turkey leftovers/food poisoning for us that year!

Arguably, the fact that none of them get sick suggests that it is fine. And that your preference is over cautious.

I grew up in a house with a proper old fashioned walk in food pantry. A lot of previously cooked food got stored in there. None of us got sick.

I do store food in a fridge now, but I am very comfortable with leaving food out overnight to cool properly. Never get sick.

I’m fine with being over cautious if it means not eating 9 day old turkey that’s been left in an oven, or a chicken sauce that’s been left on a hob for a week, constantly reheated and then just left uncovered.

Just walking into their kitchen turns my stomach. It smells, but they are all blind to it.

We stayed with a friend. We ordered a large takeaway on the first night. There was lots (and lots) left over.
She microwaved it on the next 3 nights- the same food heated over and over again. She fed it to her tiny children.
All were ok- amazing.
I had beans on toast every night.
On another occasion she microwaved chicken and left it in the microwave all day. Her husband ate it the next morning. He was in hospital with food poisoning a few days later.
I will never stay with her again.

Not if it’s been in the fridge!

Please don’t encourage people to waste perfectly good food!

Unless it’s all gone, I will parcel up meal-sized packets of leftover turkey for the freezer, enough for e.g, a curry, labelled Turkey Bits.

And as usual, we will still be eating the piece of gammon I cooked on the 24th, on New Year’s Day.