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[majorbloodnock]

I've always known it as "perpetual soup", and remembered it as a regularly simmered pot into which all sorts of offcuts and leftovers would be thrown. The only time it would be started afresh was if all the stock/soup was used up in one go.

[SylvisMum]

I am so glad I started this thread, there have been some really interesting replies. I have heard of people having perpetual stock or soup pots as well. Yet on the internet, and elsewhere there is loads about reheating food and keeping food hot - urging you not to do it more than once. I am not arguing with anybody, just feeling puzzled.

[Leicester_H]

Yet on the internet, and elsewhere there is loads about reheating food and keeping food hot - urging you not to do it more than once. I am not arguing with anybody, just feeling puzzled.

 

Yes - I know - I think people 'play it safe' with 'written' advice - in case they are held accountable.

I occasionally re-heat things twice - simply use your common sense - only you know how it was cooked, stored, reheated.

Done sensibly, evidence suggests its fine.

 

On a similar note, it really bugs me when I buy cheese, salami etc from my local supermarket deli counter and it 'has to be eaten within 48 hours' !

So much food must get wasted unnecessarily by people who don't have the confidence to make their own judgement.

 

H

[soapdragon]

We reheat stuff quite a lot however, I am very careful to make sure it is piping hot right through (a food thermometer helps!)

 

I agree entirely that too much gets thrown away - as a rule of thumb if it smells OK we eat it!! Esp the cave aged cheese/air dried meats that have clearly been hanging around somewhere or other for an indefinite period - USUALLY MONTHS- but HAVE to be eaten 48 hours after they come out of the wrapping in Chalgrove!!!

 

Thery in our house goes that you build up a certain amount of immunity to bugs this way however, sometimes OH and I eat stuff we would not give the boys! We ALWAYS buy our Xmas pud in the Jan (when vastly reduced) for the coming festive season so we can go for the real luxury version!!!

[Saronne]

Sounds familiar!

[CatieB]

I agree entirely that too much gets thrown away - as a rule of thumb if it smells OK we eat it!! Esp the cave aged cheese/air dried meats that have clearly been hanging around somewhere or other for an indefinite period - USUALLY MONTHS- but HAVE to be eaten 48 hours after they come out of the wrapping in Chalgrove!!!

 

We have a similar theory about food going out of date. We eat it, using common sense, and laugh that at midnight on the day it goes out of date the evil spirits didn't dance on our food. We have a lovely little image of the toxins looking at the clock to see if its time yet!

[The Dogmother]

I'm the same, if it's not fit for humans then it's given to the dogs or chooks. Nothing goes to waste here.

[patsylabrador]

I reheat food up to three times, except rice which I only reheat once and not at all if it's got onion mixed in. Something my dad told me about food poisoning, but I can't remember the reason he gave me. If it can't be eaten cold the following day the wild birds get to ignore it too.

I ignore use by dates unless it's dairy.

[Leicester_H]

Yes - I've heard the rice thing - 'never keep in fridge' - I am living proof that you can keep rice and reheat (I would only ever do once though) - I think its because its tiny bits so it has lots of surface area, therefore bacteria prone.

 

I do go over dates with dairy (especially plain yogurt) but not fish (except smoked fish).

 

As a rule of thumb, if a product has a short life span then I only go past it a little.

If it has a long life span (eg 2+ weeks) then I'll happily apply a judgement quite a few days past the use by date.

 

I give 'old' stuff to birds or chook only if its still OK but not tasty eg dried (resoaked) bread - if its not fit for me (for health reasons) its not fit for any living creature (I'd feel so guilty if I poisoned even the wild birds)

 

H

[kinsk]

I'm a sniff and see gal too, and to be honest I'm glad I am, I have thrown away more meat that is "in date" because it is quite plainly off when I open the packet than I have "out of date" meat which is still perfectly edible.

[merlina]

I am so glad I started this thread, there have been some really interesting replies. I have heard of people having perpetual stock or soup pots as well. Yet on the internet, and elsewhere there is loads about reheating food and keeping food hot - urging you not to do it more than once. I am not arguing with anybody, just feeling puzzled.

 

I think it's all part of the 'health and safety gone mad' thing. The 'powers that be' don't trust us to do the common-sense sniff test that so many have described, or to heat things through properly, so they err on the side of (extreme) caution. There is indeed danger in keeping food 'warm' for long periods (as anyone who's been a victim of prawns left out at a summer event can testify!), and there is a danger (I believe) in reheating stuff by giving it a quick blast in the microwave. Personally I give reheated stuff a proper 'cooking' in a proper oven - which would be fine for beef in red wine, but not for some of the other things people have mentioned.

Again, personally, I think things like casseroles and stews taste much better after they've been cooled and reheated - the flavours have time to mingle and deepen

[bottledcherryangel]

I don't think I'd reheat food a second time. I'm a great beleiver of using eyes and nose to decide if food is OK. I ignore useby dates. If it doesn't smell and isn't discoloured or mouldy, it gets eaten here.

Where has all this fuss about rice come from? I remember the days when a buffet wasn't a buffet without the ubiquitous rice salad, which was hanging around for hours, and then put in the fridge and taken out again several times, over then next couple of days until it had all been eaten.

[majorbloodnock]

Uncooked rice can contain spores of a particular bacterium, and if the rice isn't cooked properly some of those spores can survive. If the cooked rice is then left at room temperature, the spores can germinate and multiply, leaving toxins in the rice. The longer the rice is in that no-man's-land of being neither piping hot nor refrigerated, the greater the likely concentration of those toxins.

 

In practice, it means that rice should be cooked thoroughly (and here's a really good advert for brown rice, given how long it takes to cook anyway) in the first place, and either eaten hot or, if destined for a rice salad, cooled quickly by running under cold water, then refrigerated until used. Because of all this, rice is one thing that really shouldn't be reheated, and stats bear out that reheated rice is responsible for a disproportionate number of food poisoning cases.

[Olly]

You took the words out of my mouth, Major! The one thing I never, ever reheat is rice for exactly that reason. And my mother used to have a 'perpetual soup pot', too and it was delicious!

 

This is a really interesting thread. I have done a food hygiene course, but bear in mind that if you're selling food to the public - either as a supermarket or in a restaurant - you have to be a lot more careful. If you feed your family something and they get ill, you can blame it on Norovirus but if you're running a restaurant then it can have serious consequences. So the rules you learn on courses don't necessarily (in my view) apply at home, but they're there for a reason.

 

You're quite right about the ham air-dried in caves, trouble is the temperature is controlled there, and once you have got it home and opened it, who's to say how you'll store it? and EU regulations demand that a best before date at least is on foods. Honey keeps for years (thousands of years, if you look at Egyptology! ) but if I'm bottling my own honey for sale I have to put a 'best before' date on.

 

Cynically, the other reason for manufacturers to put sell-by or best-before dates on is quite simply to sell more food. If you say something only lasts three days, the customer has to eat it up or throw it away, either way they will come back to buy some more.

 

I apply the sniff-and-look to everything in my fridge except soft cheese, because the only time to my knowledge that I've ever had food poisoning was some years ago from eating some. I regularly eat out-of-date food otherwise, and floppy carrots make soup just as well as newly-bought ones!

 

I've said this before but it bears repeating - in poorer countries than ours, there is no such thing as 'out of date' food - food is either good or bad.

[The Dogmother]

Couldn't agree more Olly.

 

Rosie was just eyeing some soft cheese in the fridge with suspicion as it is slightly out of date, she asked about it and I said that if it smelled OK and wasn't mouldy then she could eat it. I think we lose our ability to apply common sense and to judge food by smell and texture/feel if we abide by the guidelines too strictly.

[Cinnamon]

I agree with you both.

We reduce food heavily at work when it is within a sniff of its sell by & the same people come back &buy their ready meals for 10p week after week. They haven't died yet!

One chap bought 14 bags of reduced ready chopped onions the other week,which was a bit odd.....

 

That said I am careful with myself & my family,having suffered terrible food poisoning once & almost hospitalized. Never again.....I would rather spend more & be safe than suffer that or have a person I love suffer that. It was horrific.

[merlina]

visiting a friend this evening I thought of this thread

Said friend was tidying her fridge and was throwing out an unopened pack of perfect tomatoes. I asked why and she pointed out that the use by date was today.

We had a *long* debate about whether it was safe to use perfect, unblemished, unsquishy tomatoes

[The Dogmother]

They'd be lovely roasted and made into a pasta sauce

[Space Chick]

It does seem that common sense has gone out of the window.

 

However, OH and I had a interesting discussion last night. he had bought some cured sausages (salami, chorizo, some german one) at a Food festival in September. When he brought them home, I vacuum sealed them and put them in the fridge for Christmas.

 

We never got around to eating them at Christmas and he said last night "We'd best throw those sausages out" I disagreed and said as they had been vacuum sealed and had been in the fridge that I thought they'd be fine for at least another month or so and I'd cook with them. (I have a few lovely pasta dishes, a soup, a rissotto and a few Spanish recipes where they could be used). He's nervous!

 

I mean you see these sausages hanging up in Spanish deli's for weeks in the searing heat.

 

What do you guys reckon? I was going to taste a little bit to see if it tasted OK, and if it did then my view was happy days

[The Dogmother]

If they are preserved meat such as salami, then I'd say that they would probably be OK as the curing process is intended to preserve them for quite a while. Best test it first though.

[Olly]

If it looks/smells/tastes ok, I'd eat them. Cured meat is meant to last a long time, that was the whole point of ham and bacon - it's so you can have meat in winter.

[Space Chick]

Thanks guys, you've backed up what I thought.

 

i'll try a little bit and take it from there

[majorbloodnock]

People seem to have lost their faith in nature. The human body is remarkably well designed to deal with potentially dangerous food, with alarm bells going off whenever we encounter something that doesn't taste, look, smell or feel quite right. Add in the fact that we're most of us easily intelligent and well educated enough to make pretty shrewd observations on how something has been treated, and the overall risk of food related illness should be pretty low.

 

Even if we do succumb to some form of food poisoning, our bodies are very efficient at dealing with the situation. I hesitate before using the word "only" in relation to deaths, but nonetheless a total of about 500 food poisoning deaths a year in the UK is a very small figure compared with, for instance, 9,000 alcohol related or 100,000 smoking related deaths.

 

So why am I rambling on about this? Well, this thread has highlighted to me once again how lucky we are that we can routinely reject food "just in case". That's not a criticism of anyone who plays it safe - me included - but I'm glad to have had the reminder nonetheless.

[rachel19]

I'm very much in the sniff and see camp i have to say. Stews taste better the more you reheat them and i have always reheated rice as well as eating it cold the next day for lunch - we try not to waste any food if at all possible. *Touch wood* i have never had food poisoning and hopefully it will stay that way!

[CatieB]

Best that none of us watch the food inspectors, starting now on BBC1