August 22, 2011
Are you sure that's still okay to eat?
When I was growing up, my Father -- born of the Great Depression -- was infamous for sniffing suspicious-looking leftovers in the refrigerator and pronouncing them eminently edible, much to the consternation of me and my sister.
Sometimes it seemed he took particular delight in a fearsomely foul, mold-flecked specimen, recounting tales of privation from the days before FDR and Adolf Hitler jump-started the economy with something known as WWII. He'd look at us, a gleam in his eyes, open a carton of milk that was rapidly transforming from liquid to curd-clotted sludge, breath deep, then tell us that the expiration date was merely a suggestion, before pouring a disgustingly-thick glass.
I suspect Dad would disagree with every conclusion in this article about how long food can be kept before it should be tossed.
Cheese
Life span: One week to two months
Cheese is essentially curdled milk, a pretty shelf-stable dairy product. Still, it can -- and will -- succumb to mold. Soft and stinky cheeses -- cottage cheese, cream cheese, blue cheese, Camembert, and feta -- should be eaten within a week. Hard cheeses like cheddar and
Parmesan will stay fresh for up to two months. So go ahead and invest in that two-pound block of Parmesan.Death rattle: When you see mold on a soft cheese, throw it out. By the time mold becomes visible, it’s already infected the whole lot. Of course, some cheese is intentionally moldy, like blue cheese. Keep tabs on it and look for any red or white mold. If a hard cheese starts growing mold, cut it off and eat the rest; the mold won’t affect the flavor.
Oh, how I remember Dad cutting away hairy, green patches from some cheese that stank the day it left the store. Even as a child I suspected that "[b]y the time mold becomes visible, it’s already infected the whole lot."
Blecch.
Read the whole stinky thing.
Especially you, Dad.
Posted by Mike Lief at August 22, 2011 07:24 AM
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