Author Topic: Age Your Canned Goods  (Read 2849 times)

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Offline Chris_

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Age Your Canned Goods
« on: March 05, 2013, 12:04:15 PM »
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Age Your Canned Goods

Standard canned goods aren’t generally deemed age-worthy. Food technologists define shelf life not by how long it takes for food to become inedible, but how long it takes for a trained sensory panel to detect a “just noticeable difference” between newly manufactured and stored cans. There’s no consideration of whether the difference might be pleasant in its own way or even an improvement—it’s a defect by definition.

But the appreciation of can-aged foods wasn’t unknown in the United States. Collins recounts an informal taste test conducted by a New York grocer who rounded up old cans from a number of warehouses, put on a luncheon in which he served their contents side by side with those from new cans, and asked his guests to choose which version they preferred. Among the test foods were fourteen-year-old pea soup and beef stew, and twelve-year-old corned beef and pigs’ feet. The guests preferred the old cans “by an overwhelming majority.”

I don’t recommend cooking foods in the can as a routine thing. Cans have various linings that may gradually release unwanted chemicals into foods, and this process will also accelerate at high temperatures. But it’s a way to explore how canned foods are capable of developing.
Slate

Interesting.  I don't know how well it would work with a can of Dinty Moore.
« Last Edit: March 05, 2013, 12:08:55 PM by Chris_ »
If you want to worship an orange pile of garbage with a reckless disregard for everything, get on down to Arbys & try our loaded curly fries.

Offline LC EFA

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Re: Age Your Canned Goods
« Reply #1 on: March 05, 2013, 03:36:49 PM »
I used to try rotating my stockpile of canned / preserved goods by eating a can of the nasty stuff now and again. Honestly I tried.

Now days I just pick the oldest can on the shelf and feed it to my neighbours dog.

That mongrel animal eats it with great gusto and seems to be no worse off for it.

Offline thundley4

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Re: Age Your Canned Goods
« Reply #2 on: March 05, 2013, 03:44:47 PM »
I used to try rotating my stockpile of canned / preserved goods by eating a can of the nasty stuff now and again. Honestly I tried.

Now days I just pick the oldest can on the shelf and feed it to my neighbours dog.

That mongrel animal eats it with great gusto and seems to be no worse off for it.


Why not donate the old stuff to food pantries?  :whistling: