Cod

[Chazzalazza]

Sooo we had two fillets of cod that had to be cooked today. I opened and it was stinky don’t get me wrong but it didn’t smell bad enough to me not to cook. I don’t know, we all ate it and kids loved it. But husband refused to! Had I just inadvertently poisoned everyone. I mean it’s so hard to know! It was fishy but not appalling and not sour and the date was for today. So technically it should be ok right.

Difficult to say without actualling getting to smell the smell. Fish should smell a little fishy. It should not reek or be unpleasant.

If it was correctly refrigerated and today was the use by date, it should be fine.

If it smelled fishy, then it's probably stale but not off.

If it smelled even remotely of ammonia, I'd consider it off.

Dates don't mean much as storage plays such an important part and some fish last better than others, salmon for example is usually fine for a couple of days past date assuming perfect storage. Cod on the other hand I cook the day I buy it as it gets stronger smelling and while not off I don't like it at that stage, it stinks the house out and I can cooked fish for days afterwards. Had some lovely fresh battered cod lately but even with fan and window open the smell persisted for days!

Either way unlikely to make you sick if it didn't taste off when cooked, you'd know and even it was still not a foregone conclusion you'd get sick, stomach acid/bugs etc might just deal with it fine.

Was it vacuum packed? Things do smell a bit more when that stuff is opened ime...

Did you all survive the night?

If it stinks then bin it. Fish should not be pongy, it should just have a clean, sea like smell with a bit of fish overtones.
I wouldn't risk it as even if it's not harmful it would mean you probably won't enjoy eating it.

Remember watching a TV programme where a fish expert opened up lots of vacuum packed fish and said how old they were .... some were very old...he said none of them would give anyone food poisoning but did smell unpleasant. He recommended buying frozen fish rather than fresh fish in supermarkets. It stayed with me.