The Difficulty of Date Unknown

The second installment of a four week series on What's Left, and a big announcement at the end!

Dear Tamar:

When are leftovers truly too far gone? I want to be better at using them, and have had some tasty success, but I find it hard not to be nervous about feeding my family slightly older food… I haven’t food poisoned everyone before and I’d like to keep the streak going. I know that many things are usually good past the official recommendations and labels, but I’d love your thoughts. I’m sure part of the answer is a smarter/more organized system for storing my leftovers, with labels and a designated “use soon” section, but even still, where do you draw the line? Only if off smell/visible mold? Certain amount of time past? I’d love your general thoughts on food storage. Thank you!

-Best by Date Unknown

Dear Best By Date Unknown,

I’m so glad you brought up food poisoning. The only subject I contemplate as often as I do leftovers is poison. This isn’t out of murderous rage, but a deeply held love of mysteries, dating back to my having received an unabridged collected Sir Arthur Conan Doyle for my ninth birthday.

You asked about leftovers and poison because in many of our minds, the two live together. We want to use leftover, aging food. But it seems dangerous. When our inner cook-angel whispers from one shoulder: Just do it! The rice looks fine, the milk smells sweet…our inner cook-devil whispers from the other: No! It may be poison.

It’s true that we poison ourselves. Poisoning is “the leading cause of unintentional injury death, surpassing motor vehicle crashes,” according to the CDC. (If you’re reading this on a phone while driving, stop. That’s riskier.) But we’re not poisoning ourselves with food—and certainly not with old rice or milk. Almost all American poisoning comes from drugs, carbon dioxide, and pesticides. If you’re scared of poisoning your family: 1) Dispose of all opioids. 2) Don’t light grills inside or leave cars running in the garage. 3) Don’t use chemicals on your lawn. Follow those guidances—also from the CDC—and you’re probably fine.

Food poisoning does exist. I’ve written about it before. In my research, I learned that foods we think are risky—like raw meat and fish and expired dairy—are not nearly as dangerous as we imagine, especially compared to pharmaceuticals and garden supplies. I also learned that the highest risk comes from widely-distributed fresh food.

On October 20, Kroger recalled hundreds of pounds of bagged collard greens for possible Listeria contamination. On September 27, there was a recall of 6,456 cases of cantaloupe (Salmonella). In April, it was bagged lettuce. In March, frozen strawberries (Hepatitis A). Almost half the food-borne illness in the US comes from fruit, nuts, and vegetables—the worst offender is leafy green vegetables (22 percent of all food poisoning).

What is the lesson here? To avoid vegetables? No. To buy vegetables and fruit grown nearby, so they pass through the fewest possible waypoints, lowering the risk of contamination. And wash any you buy.

Where do I draw the line? Do you know what hundreds of thousands of restaurant cooks are doing right now? They’re opening up waist-high refrigerators called “low boys,” taking out plastic containers—”delis”—in which their chopped or par-cooked or marinated or sauced ingredients—”mise en place”— are stored, and tasting each one. There is one labeled “Use First” because it’s the oldest. It’ll be the first each cook tastes. If it tastes good, it’ll be put up on their station to be used first. The reason everything else must be tasted is because tasting is the only way to know. If a container is opened and it emits a noxious gas, or its contents are covered in purple mold, there’s no need to taste. Otherwise, there is. It takes the tiniest sample to know if food is off, and that sample will not poison anyone. The opposite: it’s providing every indication that one should desist from further sampling.

The restaurant cook’s path resembles the best advice I can give. Store leftovers in labeled containers, ideally according to some logic—cooked food on one shelf, cheese on another. Store the oldest in front, and give it a label that communicates to your future self. ”Use first” sounds curt. I like labels like “frittata-to-be” and “Friday’s lunch” and “Add to tomato sauce THIS WEEK.”

Dear cook, stay alert to errant pharmaceuticals and toxic gases. But uncouple my two favorite topics—poison and leftovers. They are rarely entwined, except in novels, where a murder weapon is doubly delicious for having been ingested. I’ve written two books on cooking with leftovers, the most recent an encyclopedia where you can search for a recipe for any leftover. Neither required a legal disclaimer.

HERE’S MY BIG NEWS:

The Kitchen Shrink is coming to you LIVE on Saturday, November 18 at the Hudson Farmer’s Market!

With the help of the incredible Colin Packard, Christine Jones, and Peter Olivier, I’ll be setting up an advice stand, and giving real live culinary advice from 9 am to noon at the farmer’s market.

Bring your nickels, because advice costs 5 cents!