The Problem of Puzzled by Pumpkin

Dear Tamar:

I found a 15-oz can of Organic Pumpkin Puree in my pantry with a “Best Before” date of 03/23. The can is intact (no swelling or dents), and the label features: “BPA free liner.” I’m apt to crank it open, smell it to ensure it smells pumpkin-y, and use it. (If I found grandma’s preserves from a couple years back, I’d be thrilled.) Would you please share your principles for when to be a stickler and when to be relaxed about “Best Buy” dates? Thank you!

-Puzzled by Pumpkin

Dear Puzzled,

I’ve been trying for years to replicate corn muffins I’ve never tasted. I inherited this Quixotic drive—though not the specific quest—from my mother. She’s been trying to replicate ice cream sandwiches she’s never tasted for even longer. Both of our quests were planted in our impressionable minds by my husband, who’s reminisced convincingly enough about the ice-cream sandwiches and corn muffins of his youth to set us on our respective paths.

Three weeks ago, according to the only person qualified to judge, I succeeded. For the hundredth time, I made a batch of corn muffins, upper lip stiffened in preparation for the response I’ve come to expect, along the lines of: These are great, just not exactly what I remember. But my fates had turned. (Oddly, as I prodded the muffins out of their tins to cool, I sensed it, a whiff of success wafting upward in the sweet, corny steam…) After tasting one, the adjudicator announced: “These are them!” I didn’t correct his misuse of the objective pronoun. I was too excited.

They were great muffins. What had made them so was the unique mix of sour and expired dairy I’d included. I write this so confidently because I always use the same recipe—my own, which I adapt from my most recent book, where it’s listed as a good use for leftover “bacon fat.” (For muffins I use butter.) The only changes I make are the combinations of dairy. For the muffins in question, I used a combination of moldy whipped cream—with mold around its outside, while its innards were fine—expired regular cream, old yogurt, and regular milk. I didn’t taste the batter while it was raw, but baked, it evolved into extra puffy, complexly corny muffins.

I don’t know if the original, much-mythologized muffins contained expired and moldy dairy. I’m mentioning mine because they were definitively improved by soured ingredients and to illustrate, generally, how I feel about “best by” and “expiration dates.” They are, as the British say—I had to literally sprint through Heathrow airport two days ago; the British are on my mind—“rubbish.”

I’ve also talked and written about expiration dates in the past. There’s a good deal on them in the book I link to above. Last year, I answered a question about them from "By by Date Unknown.” I’ve written Op-Eds, and given interviews. In the briefest terms: they aren’t federally mandated; they aren’t standardized; they aren’t correlated with food safety. I’ve been at odds before with the USDA, whose recommendations on perishable food sometimes seem overly-cautious to the point of being dour. But regarding your pumpkin puree, even the USDA agrees with me, stating that “most shelf-stable foods are safe indefinitely.”

History also agrees. For most of human history, we used our senses to determine if food was edible—as you suggested you might and I agree you should. A commenter on my Washington Post Op-Ed (linked above), asserts: “Any recipe that begins, ‘There are many ways to make….’ is in fact some cook using leftovers.” This is an astute and probably correct observation. Your nose knows (and if has any doubts, your tongue can allay them easily and with little sample material.)

Dear cook, rely on your senses. Focus your energies, not on expiration and best-by dates, but on appealing ways to use canned pumpkin. Spicy Thai-curry-scented pumpkin soup or pumpkin curry would be delightful in these snowy days, begun with red curry paste, perhaps, made spicier with Thai chiles, enriched with coconut milk, and aromatic with makrut lime, with perhaps some chopped shrimp or fish poached directly in it. As would this pumpkin bread, which can be baked and then frozen. In either case, know you can trust yourself and only yourself to solve your pumpkin puzzle.

P.S. My mom is still working on the ice cream sandwiches. I’ll keep you posted.

A note: I’m just back from traveling, so haven’t gotten to it, but once I have, I’ll also send the full video of my amazingly fun conversation about cooking with the marvelous Clare De Boer once I’ve settled in, so expect an extra Kitchen Shrink in your inbox before next week’s column!