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Following on from the food waste thread how about a thread which examines the attitude of forum members and food "eat by dates"; and of course to a start a competition to see who has eaten food furthest away from the said date (frozen items excluded).
I can confess personally to eating a steak pie that was 13 days past its use by date;
Tomato puree that was 2 months gone;
a tin of corned beef approaching 10 years past it advised date;
Still here with no ill effects
So let the entries roll in
ps (pasty roulette does not count), that is a game whereby at a social function one adds a "well gamey" pasty to plate of others that are within eat by dates in the hope an unsuspecting pie eater will consume it.
As always
Mark
Last edited by: VxFan on Mon 18 Apr 11 at 12:38
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Had a couple of Tesco yogurts tonight that had 24 Nov 2010 eat by dates. Nout wrong with them.
Sell by & use by dates are "safe" dates put on by suppliers / shops to cover themselves.
I use the assumption that if it hasn't gone green, not covered in mould, doesn't smell of anything other than what it's supposed to smell of, then it's still safe to eat - regardless the eat by or sell by date has been and gone. Hasn't killed me yet, and I rarely get the two bob bits.
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...it hasn't gone green, not covered in mould, doesn't smell of anything other than what it's supposed to smell of, then it's still safe to eat...
Same here.
Eat on condition, not age or recorded mileage. :)
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Worcester Sauce - actually ages properly...
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A friend of mine worked for a food company that used to be not too far up the road from me. Among some of the horror stories he told me, a hotel phoned one day and asked if they had any fresh chickens? "Yes" replied my friends boss, "we'll get some on the van to you this afternoon". The boss hangs up the phone and instructs my friend to take some chickens out of the cold store and to thaw them out in front of the portable calor gas fires.
No feedback as to whether anyone suffered salmonella poisoning.
Another thing they used to do was to re-wrap anything with fresh clingfilm that had an expired sell by date and put a new date label on it.
Makes you wonder how many other suppliers do the same thing.
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A well known retail one does Dave, moistens the meat, then re-packs is.
Edit: Damn it, I sound like HAL from 2001 there !
Last edited by: Pugugly on Thu 10 Feb 11 at 21:40
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>> A well known retail one does Dave, moistens the meat, then re-packs is.
>>
>> Edit: Damn it, I sound like HAL from 2001 there !
>>
Terrible.
Expect that of small places.
Stupid thing to do.
Criminal in my book.
Ordinary People could get food poisoning.
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>>
>> Another thing they used to do was to re-wrap anything with fresh clingfilm that had
>> an expired sell by date and put a new date label on it.
>>
>> Makes you wonder how many other suppliers do the same thing.
>>
I think there is a whole industry out there re-packaging food that has passed its 'best before' date.
Last edited by: spamcan61 on Thu 10 Feb 11 at 21:38
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There certainly is.
I've had catering packs of Tuna returned because of a short use by date when it was under eight years. That seems to be the normal for the food manufacturing factories who make ready meals and pizzas.
On the other hand we regularly collect canned goods that are out of date, take them to be relabelled and a new long sell by date stamped after the first one has been removed.
These are then collected and delivered to someone further down the food chain, eventually ending up at the High street pound shops.
It makes you wonder just how much profit there is in that can of Waitrose baked beans or tuna in the first place to pay for all this transport and labour and still sell for 3 for a £1.
Pat
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Sadly many, many years ago as a school youth on evening and weekend working at the now defunct (and non litigious) Gateways supermarkets
I was forced to do the same either replacing or re-writing use by date labels by an avaricious manager depending on the product concerned.
If I can call recall correctly some labels were overplaced 2 or 3 times depends depending on the cunning of the manager and the different shifts concerned who knew nothing about the earlier alterations.
Still the store I was at never got done.
As always
Mark
Last edited by: Mark on Thu 10 Feb 11 at 21:45
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Another reason to to local butchers, generally they have a vested interest in keeping you alive.
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>> Hasn't killed me yet, and I rarely get the two bob bits.
>>
No, but when your pulse is going Half Crown/Threepenny bit you need to make 'arrangements'.
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For starters most of the population don't seem to realise the fundamental difference between 'use by' and 'best before' dates.
I had some 'best before' August 2010 Bernard Mathews Turkey Steaks the other night (I know how to live it up), tasted the same as normal. An Iceland chocolate mousse a week beyond 'use by' date was OK as well.
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Brave man
With dairy type things one month past the best by is as far as I dare go.
But who knows? does any one on here know better?
Can anyone top this dairy driven madness?
As always
Mark
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>> Can anyone top this dairy driven madness?
>>
Jar of Vegemite in my cupboard, dated 16-9-2004. Still perfectly edible.
I check it with the fresh food indicator handily placed on the front of my face.
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What on earth do they put in a steak pie to keep it edible for over a fortnight. Good enough reason for never buying one let alone eating it.
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CG
I have no idea what was added to the pie; the point was on 13 days later it caused no ill effects
Either a robust constitution or additives played their part and I cannot suggest which prevailed.
Mrs Mark will bin anything (she finds) that is more than 24 hrs after the use by date which bring us back to the other posted topic; when does food become waste?
Obviously I disagee with Mrs Mark here and so do others whom laugh in the face of use by dates
Come on; I am sure there are some good tales here with regards these being exceeded by some margin
Or are we all wimps who religiously bin food that could be eaten will no ill effect?
Alternatively someone could start a food poisoning thread; I altready have a kebab entry should anyone care but it came cooked on the spot with no use by date, just an "alright mate £3.60" notification.
They had a food hygiene cert too.....
As always
Mark
Last edited by: Mark on Thu 10 Feb 11 at 23:36
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I had 4 very nice lamb chops for dinner last night. I found them in the bottom of the freezer and the date on them was Feb 10. I admit that they didn't taste as nice as fresh lamb but who can afford that evry often! No "Ill" effects this morning!
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Bunch of amateurs..
I am the guinea pig in our house and am used to test out of date food - eg.. home made raspberry jam with mould on it. If I don't die/fall ill in 3 days , it's safe to eat. The 2006 jar we found last year behind a cupboard was OK.
I'm still alive unless this is my ghost writing....
Last edited by: madf on Fri 11 Feb 11 at 14:28
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I was once tasked with checking the tins in a shelter, they'd already been there for well over ten years. They were all large, rectangular, breeze block size.
We were told to only chuck the bulging ones, rust was OK.
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I've eaten 35 year old marmalade (made by friend's late grandmother). Bottled cherries of a similar vintage.
I've got bottles of wine in my cellar with a date on them over 50 years ago.
Beware pork, duck, goose or oily fish (all with high fat levels) in a freezer. It goes rancid after a couple of years.
Tinned sardines get better with age I've some that are a decade old.
Steak improves with being hung for 5 or 6 weeks.
Last edited by: Mapmaker on Fri 11 Feb 11 at 17:07
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I ate a Kit Kat I found after cleaning under the driver's seat of my old Xsara. It belonged to the previous owner and had been alternately nuked and cooled by the heating for at least 7 years. It was only when I was half way through it that I realised they hadn't made them with foil for a looooong time.
IIRC I didn't feel very well afterwards, though could be psychosomatic!
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Marie Elisabeth sardines are reputed to be very good. It is recommended that the tins are turned during storage, a bit like wine I guess. Not too impressed to read that the trademark and production in Portugal have been bought out by Heinz.
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I don't know how old it was, but I've had bacon in the past that needed rinsing under the hot water tap, because it'd gone all slimy.
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Grandad F was a beekeeper and I remember when we cleared his place we found a whole barrel of 30yr old honey in the shed. We transferred the lot into kilner jars and scoffed it over a couple of years. All those that consumed it are still alive... my sister has made bad judgements with several husbands but I don't think that's down to the honey??
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I found some wartime tea and made it. Tasteless and a bit dusty.
They've brought honey out of the pyramids.
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>> I found some wartime tea and made it. Tasteless and a bit dusty.
My mother claims it was tasteless and dusty even during the war.
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You can salvage quite a lot of tea from behind the foil in the tea chests they supply for house removals.
I wouldn't say no to a crate or two of that Shackleton Antarctic-aged whisky.
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when did you last move CP - haven't seen a proper tea chest for decades!
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>> when did you last move CP - haven't seen a proper tea chest for decades!
>>
>>
25 years ago. I bought the 60 tea chests they supplied and kept them for storage in the barn. I still find tea lurking in the odd one I haven't yet raided.
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Generally the sniff test is the best test. I have eaten plenty of things out of the freezer of dubious vintage. Frozen stuff doesn't seem to have a year written on which is very annoying.
Double cream seems to last at least a week past the use by if left unopened. Organic full fat milk also generally lasts beyond the use by.
Squidgy mushrooms are best turned into soup. Doesn't matter how slimey they've gone.
Someone on the box warned about rice causing food poisoning if you let it cool down naturally then re-heat it I've never had a problem with doing that ever. Which is weird...
I don't push the dates with seafood. That's asking for trouble!
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"Someone on the box warned about rice causing food poisoning if you let it cool down naturally then re-heat it I've never had a problem with doing that ever. Which is weird..."
It not so much the re-heating, its letting it stand at room temperature for a period. Rice grains often contains a bacteria which is not necessarily killed by cooking. Standing for 24 hours at room temperature allow the bacteria to grow releasing toxins which can cause serious food poisoning.
Most case of food poisoning attributed to dodgy curries etc probably actually originate from the rice. If you need to keep it put it in the fridge and allow it to cool quickly and eat the next day. There are a lot of food that you can keep safely for a long while but rice isn't one of them.
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>> "Someone on the box warned about rice causing food poisoning if you let it cool
>> down naturally then re-heat it I've never had a problem with doing that ever. Which
>> is weird..."
>>
>> It not so much the re-heating, its letting it stand at room temperature for a
>> period. Rice grains often contains a bacteria which is not necessarily killed by cooking.
I think this was (historically ?) an issue with takeaways and fried rice - i.e., they boil the rice one evening, leave it to cool and 'fry' it the next, which gives the bacteria the chance to develop, but also if your rice is left in' less than secure conditions' IYKWIM in one of those takeaways that appear on 'Grimebusters' or whatever, it has all sorts of visitors. That's not brown rice, you know.........
Last edited by: borasport on Sun 13 Feb 11 at 17:03
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Maybe it's because I've mostly done it with home cooked rice and it would only have been cooling for 2 or 3 hours then it's been bunged into the freezer.
Is the bacterial growth the same with all kinds of rice or are some worse than others I wonder?
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www.typesofbacteria.co.uk/bacillus-cereus-cereals-rice.html
gives chapter and verse. Anybody fancy a curry?
and if it was not the rice then take your choice.........
www.emedicinehealth.com/food_poisoning/page3_em.htm
Last edited by: pmh on Sun 13 Feb 11 at 19:15
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Old thread, but still just in-date I think:
Yesterday I was clearing unwanted junk from my mother's garage and discovered a forgotten freezer. It had been left on, and was full of food dated 2007. Should keep me fed for a month or two.
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I'd try it, for sure. As I noted a few days ago, you may find the taste a bit disappointing, but I don't think you will get the trots!
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Just beware fatty food as the low temperatures do not prevent it from going rancid.
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Aha! That must be why my recently referred to lamb chops were in good condition but didn't taste quite right! Thanks for that
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I'm not normally one to worry too much about sell by dates, but I have a query about a microwave curry currently in the fridge in Iffy Towers.
It's one of those twin tray ones, with rice in one compartment and chicken tikka in the other.
The plastic cover over the chicken has ballooned a little, suggesting a build up of pressure.
Sell by date is February 14.
Edible or not?
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Bin it, without a doubt.
Pat
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Bad food doesn't usually do you any harm. Before refrigeration people ate it all the time. That's what spices used to be for.
In Africa street sellers sell roast or grilled beef in the evenings. In Nigeria it comes with pepper and stuff and is called suya. It's a bit expensive, extremely good and has never done me any harm. Sometimes though without telling you they substitute fried snails for the beef. That's pretty good too, but the experience of getting snails when you were hoping for beef is so annoying you don't fancy it so much.
In Kenya once although very hungry I didn't eat some roast beef because it smelt seriously off.
We won't even think about the sort of thing to be found in the larders of elderly English bluestockings like certain ladies I have known (NB: not Ms Coussine at all, but some close relations nonetheless).
'How can you throw away perfectly good food, darling?' they cry indignantly when you use your speed, nimbleness and common sense to save their lives once again.
However in about 1960 the brother of a person I met at university, a Marshall scholar from Harvard and Southern gent, lost his elder brother to botulism from a tin of something while camping.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Wed 16 Feb 11 at 18:51
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...They do that. Enjoy!...
Mmm, I wonder if, by some slim chance, the advice of some posters may be motivated by something other than concern for my welfare?
Surely not.
Pat is bound to have my best interests at heart, so at the minute the old ruby is destined for dusty bin.
Anyone else care to cast a vote?
(I've made a will, by the way, and none of you lot are getting none of it).
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...I would bin it !...
Or put it in a Skip. :)
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I would eat it. I eat almost anything: jam with mould on, past sell by date food, 3 week old cream (lovely)... and so far in my life I have had one instance of food poisoning and that was undercooked chicken - in South Africa.
I've survived Nigerian food in Nigeria .. and after that...and the water..I never caught anything . That must have been luck: my work colleague caught the runs...
Mind you, I eat lots of ripe fruit straight from the garden unwashed so it could be my digestive system is hardened to a bit of dirt, or bacteria , or bugs or whatever the local cows over the fence are incubating..
Frankly most people in the UK need exposing to a few germs especially early on in life. Food intolerance and lack of resistance to germs can be caused by too sterile a diet in one's youth..
If I did have a sterile diet when young, I am making up for it now. Worm stew anyone?
Last edited by: madf on Wed 16 Feb 11 at 19:22
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>> I would eat it. I eat almost anything: jam with mould on
Don't you remove the mould? Sometimes it doesn't taste nice.
>> I've survived Nigerian food in Nigeria .. and after that...and the water..I
>> never caught anything
On a trip to the Far East, we drank beer instead of water. That was until one time when we were far from a shop - then it was "raw" river water. No problems at all.
>> Frankly most people in the UK need exposing to a few germs especially early on
>> in life. Food intolerance and lack of resistance to germs can be caused by too
>> sterile a diet in one's youth..
I agree with that, as long as the process is continuous.
>> Worm stew anyone?
Eurgh, no thanks, unless they're "purged" - they are full of sand. Try pheasant gizzards ditto, if you're new at it.
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Following AC's reference to botulism i thought I'd look it up
The characteristic early symptoms and signs are marked fatigue, weakness, and vertigo, usually followed by blurred vision, dry mouth, and difficulty in swallowing and speaking. Vomiting, diarrhoea, constipation and abdominal swelling may occur. The disease can progress to weakness in the neck and arms, after which the respiratory muscles and muscles of the lower body are affected. The paralysis may make breathing difficult. There is no fever and no loss of consciousness.
The mortality rate is high if treatment is not immediate and proper. The disease can be fatal in 5 to 10% of cases.
On the other hand seem a shame to waste a curry :-)
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>> Sell by date is February 14.
>>
>> Edible or not?
Absolutely completely edible.
As BBD would say "I would"
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Most cheese is past its sell by date. Some of the good ones are mouldy in various forms.
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That's what the blue is in blue cheese, isn't it?
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Yup. Penicillium roqueforti
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Eat it Eat it!
I would only draw the line after following this thread at tinned John West Red Salmon c1974 or the "Pensioners Friend" as it became known.
As always
Mark
Last edited by: Mark on Wed 16 Feb 11 at 23:44
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>> Someone on the box warned about rice causing food poisoning if you let it cool
>> down naturally then re-heat it I've never had a problem with doing that ever. Which
>> is weird...
Bin there done the T shirt.
Most food poisoning (eg salmonella) takes 8-20 hours incubation before vomiting and world fall out of bottom kick in. This one bounces off the stomach; eat take away, sit down for ten minutes & feel queazy, ten more minutes and it's chunder time.
No lasting effects though. Once the vomit stage has passed a bacon sandwich top up seems quite appealing.
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I expect by now it's in the bin. Best place for it!
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Mate of mine came down with food poisoning after eating a takeaway curry in Rusholme in Manchester (which in itself is not a rare occurance). Concerned after finding he couldn't keep anything down after several days he went to the doctor who reckoned it was almost certainly the rice that had caused it. I'd never heard about rice food poisoning previous to that.
About 20 years ago I became very ill after a meal in a "posh" restaurant in Cheshire and was diagnosed with some type of Salmonella. Apparently you can get a letter from the doctor and get the health inspectors sent to the restaurant following Salmonella poisoning but I didn't bother. Wasn't a nice experience.
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My dad refuses to chuck anything out - sell by dates are just a con in his eyes.
However, when I found a tin of kidney beans with a date of 2006 on it and tried to chuck it out he went mad. But I had to explain to him that when he bought it, it would have had 4 years or so life on it, so he had actually had that tin for about 9 years and never felt the need to open it so why keep it any longer!!!
I know I have said this before but in the supermarkets, the waste is appalling. For a while we were able to hand in food to the local soup kitchens, homeless units etc but then elf and safety stopped that as well because no one from the supermarket was going to say that the food was still perfectly edible!
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>>when I found a tin of kidney beans with a date of 2006 on it and tried to chuck it out
Bobby, do you think that working in a supermarket (iirc) and seeing so much food thrown away has made you more casual about wasting food in the way described above than you would otherwise have been?
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I have been watching this thread for a few days now and have over the last 10 days consumed every night a yogurt from a pack in the fridge with a use by date of 31st January with no ill effects, still half a dozen to go.....
Worst case of food poisoning I had was in Shanghai , I was bad with vomiting and a severe case of the Shanghai doo doos . I think it must have been the sweet and sour giant panda......
SWMBO was worse , throwing up spectacularly in the fountain in the lobby of our hotel before spending most of the night fighting me for possession of the toilet....
Not an experience either of us would care to repeat.....
Last edited by: Webmaster on Sat 19 Feb 11 at 00:07
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My worst food poisoning was in Bulgaria, I originally just thought it was drink but then more and more people all had the same syptoms and the local Italian was the cause. Apparently they made a huge carbonara sauce in the morning and just reheated it all day !
It is the only time I have experienced expulsions from four areas of my body simultaneously!!
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Top 5, In order of severity:
Pork in Lanzarote. A week in agony.
Chicken in Ibiza. A week in only slightly milder agony. At least I could sit up.
Mussels in France. 24 hours of misery.
Scallops at home. 24 hours again.
Chicken Curry from Wetherspoons, City of London. A week of discomfort without any violent eruptions.
There may be others I have forgotten about.
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I picked up the old Dehli belly on a business trip in India. Turned the 12 hour return flight into a seriously traumatic experience and I basically couldn't eat for 2 weeks after getting back home. Got rid of the beer gut though.
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Mapmaker, no I think the opposite actually.
I have seen so much food being thrown out that was perfectly usable that I very rarely do chuck out.
Although it has to be said when a certain supermarket chain came to the fore up here, it was very interesting to see their recycling methods!!
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I have the stomach of a Bessemer converter. I have eaten nearly everything in nearly every part of the world under nearly every circumstance, and never had a problem.
I remember one trip on a channel ferry where I was the only one at the bar in a force 4 gale, grabbing my beer for a gulp as it slid by on its never ending 12 feet side to side sliding journey.
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I feel sick just reading that.
I was once on a ferry on a perfectly calm sea. I took a pint, then, completely out of character, played an arcade-style car racing game. As I stood up out of the driving seat, I pebbledashed the carpet.
I think I must have one of the weakest constitutions known to man.
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>> I have the stomach of a Bessemer converter. I have eaten nearly everything in nearly every part of the world under nearly every circumstance, and never had a problem.
I have generally been like that too. Eat the food, drink the water, no problems. Just once, drank some delicious cold well water in Algeria from a plastic mug shared with a bunch of affable rural workers. Spent a ghastly night at Charles de Gaulle airport 24 hours later, no money too, dragging my luggage in the bog with me. But that's the only runs I can remember getting.
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I once had a dose of what I suspect was mild salmonella from a Christmas turkey dinner.
One other diner had the same.
I felt mild stomach cramps within an hour of eating the meal.
I had the trots for about 36 hours.
Without being too graphic, what surprised me was the amount and frequency of visits to the toilet.
You would have thought, having gone three or four times in little more than an hour, there would be nothing left inside.
But no, for several hours I was on the toilet every half hour or so.
I ate the meal on Christmas Day, and the plan was to call the doctor on December 27 if I was no better.
No doc needed because I made an unaided recovery.
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...curry update...curry update...curry update...
Flattened the curry just before 7pm and no adverse reaction...
...yet.
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Good man!
Dont give in; but if it does not work out, as it were; my plumbing facilities are
out of bounds as it were...
As always
Mark
However
Please it is great to see there are many not frightened by sell by/use by dates on here, some good old common sense or tight fistedness I know (or care even less) which; but what ever the motivation please carry on
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Feeling too idle to walk to the village shop for some snacks I searched the fridge and found a packet of Philly cheese; whipped it up with some crushed garlic and am eating it with some crisps. Best by date is 1st Dec 2008. Looks good, tastes good and if I don't post over the weekend you will know that I don't have internet access in hospital!
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>>Philly cheese. Best by date is 1st Dec 2008.
It's been a pleasure to know you, PP.
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Did he know that philly was supposed to be white?
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>> Best by date is 1st Dec 2008.
Weather forecast for the weekend in your area is brown rain then?
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Botulism is best after 2 years in cheese.... No known cure...
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Thanks for the link! All is well, perhaps the garlic has killed the lurgies? I will post in the morning - if I survive! We impoverished and disorganised OAPs can't bin food when the date doesn't fit!
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Daughter was here and found some low-fat butter-type spread in the fridge she put on her hot-cross-bun.
When she complained about the rancid taste we looked at it more closely. Best before 09/2010. The lid had a hole in it and there was the beginning of a black mould growing.
I don't see her very often!
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Mother in law got incontinance knickers on prescription, Perks.
Might be an idea to get some while you have some muscle control left.
Ted
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Life is good! Off the village shop to get the paper and than back for coffee, toast and an IN date boiled egg!
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>> Mother in law got incontinance knickers on prescription, Perks.
>> Might be an idea to get some while you have some muscle control left.
>>
>> Ted
>>
Kegel exercises are better and free..
kelsey-seybold.adam.com/content.aspx?productId=117&pid=1&gid=003975
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The next consignment from emptying my mother's garage is due in shortly. This week's special offer is 4 year old tinned grapefruit segments. It will make a nice change from vintage chicken korma.
I think we reach the wine section soon, so no qualms about age there.
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Not quite so CP. I have got some 1983 Claret and it has not been properly cellared. If it had been it would be worth £5k for my case of 12! It is just drinkable but nothing special. I found a 15 year old case of cheap Rioja in my garage and it was totally undinkable, cloudy and a strange light red colour. However, I hope you are lucky!
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I've heard several wine experts say cheap wines are meant to be consumed soon after buying because they deteriorate, not improve, with age.
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Most everyday wine is sold "ready for drinking" and will deteriorate" after a year or so
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Oh dear. Well, the message is clear - there's not a moment to lose.
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I am a wine drinker but not an expert. My understanding is that anything without a vintage date is likely to be a blend of wine from different sources. Thus the French Vin du Pays and German Tafelwein are buy and drink. Anything with a date on it is likely to be better quality and may, or may not, improve with keeping. Similarly a named producer or chateau is a better bet than Rhine, Rhone or Mosel which cover large areas and will probably be blends.
Good reds can improve with age but whites tend not to. This book, at under £5 delivered is useful although my experience is that supermarket wine stocks change so much that most of the wines are not on the shelves for the whole 12 months
tinyurl.com/6ksq3s5
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>> My understanding is that anything without
>> a vintage date is likely to be a blend of wine from different sources.
Not so, PP. There are plenty of non-vintage wines around that are not a blend from different sources.
I enjoy a drop myself, but like you I am not an expert.
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I did say likely! Think of the dreaded Bereich Nierstein! It is a very large area with hundreds(?) of growers whose grapes are mixed and blended to produce something as generic as, say, Indian tea.
Wikipeda says
Each of Germany's thirteen wine producing regions is divided into smaller districts known as bereich. Reference to these sub-regions has fallen from fashion in recent years but they still exist as a part of the landscape of German wine law.
Bereich Nierstein is one of three sub-regions in the Rheinhessen, Germany. The bereich starts at Bodenheim, just south of Walluf in the Rheingau, and follows the Rhine upstream, past Nackenheim, as far as Gimbsheim in the south. It includes the Great Wine Capital of Mainz and the famed Roter Hang (Red Slope) centered around Nierstein.
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>> there's not a moment to lose.
Especially if it's Beaujolais Nouveau.
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>> >> there's not a moment to lose.
>>
>> Especially if it's Beaujolais Nouveau.
Its already Beaujolais Vieux
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>> Its already Beaujolais Vieux
... and all the better for it as often as not. The fact that Beaujolais can be drunk when it's new doesn't mean it can't improve quite a lot over a couple of years. Drinking it new isn't compulsory. In France it's a bit of a scam I think. It arrives in Paris every year whooping and hollering and lots of people drink it with their dinner at rather steep prices.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Mon 7 Mar 11 at 13:40
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And there was a hyped up "race" to get it London for drinking, a variant on getting the first grouse in the restaurants on the Glorious 12th!
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>>The fact that Beaujolais can be drunk when it's new doesn't mean it can't improve quite a lot over a couple of years.<<
I very much doubt that Beaujolais Nouveau would improve over a couple of years, more likely the opposite after 12 months or so.
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Matters of taste are notoriously difficult to describe and compare Clk Sec. But to my untrained (if opinionated) palate, good quality Beaujolais can certainly improve over several years.
But you are not alone in imagining that it's only good when it's new. I have a Belgian friend, a bit of a gourmet and something of a gourmand, who shares your opinion.
However you are both almost certainly wrong. The only person I know who agreed with me (and indeed produced the decent Beaujolais on which our opinion was based) is dead though so I can't call on him in to hit you over the head with a Beaujolais bottle.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Mon 7 Mar 11 at 15:50
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We are at cross purposes again, AC. I am talking about Beaujolais Nouveau, and Beaujolais Nouveau will not improve with age.
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>> We are at cross purposes again, AC. I am talking about Beaujolais Nouveau, and Beaujolais
>> Nouveau will not improve with age.
>>
Oh yes it will, but it won't be "Nouveau" any more. A baby's brain improves by the time it gets to 7 years old, but then it is no longer a baby!
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>> Oh yes it will
Oh no it won't.
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It wont. It has insufficient tannin or sugars in it to mature. Its chemically impossible.
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>> It has insufficient tannin or sugars in it to mature. Its chemically impossible.
Someone's been reading the Observer's Book of Plonk and Dinnertable Blather devoid of All Meaning. Fat lot you know about tannins, sugars and chemical impossibility. You've just bought the annual acid festival stuff like an excitable Parisian. I think it's rather sweet of you actually. You ought to meet my Belgian buddy. You're two of a kind.
I've drunk Beaujolais Vieux (five or six years old) and I can tell you it was a lot nicer and more substantial than the thin second-pressing stuff that has to be chilled to be drinkable. It had clearly improved and needed to be drunk at room temperature like Cotes du Rhone.
Wine is funny stuff and often pulls unexpected tricks.
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AC
We are talking about Beaujolais Nouvea.
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>> We are talking about Beaujolais Nouveau.
Well, yes. But it's the same stuff three or five years later, just better (or not as the case may be). It could be that the stuff rushed to Paris and London and drunk chilled at high prices is the worst of the harvest, and the good stuff is allowed to improve. I wouldn't know and can't be bothered to find out. I'm really a beer and vodka man if not worse.
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>> >> We are talking about Beaujolais Nouveau.
>>
>> Well, yes. But it's the same stuff three or five years later,
Its not AC, its really not. Beaujolais Nouveau is not Beaujolais.
>> I wouldn't know and can't be bothered to find out. I'm really a beer and vodka man if not worse
I am am pretty disapointed you could blather off about it claiming knowledge and then produce that pearl of wisdom.
Really AC, Its not the done thing.
Last edited by: Zero on Mon 7 Mar 11 at 18:07
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Ah. That would explain it then. They call the thin second-rate stuff 'Nouveau' and bung it in the fridge to justify asking people to pay good money for it.
What a disrespectful way to treat red wine. Just like a Muslim barman in central Africa.
Those Frogs are as clever as a cartload of monkeys. A stroke of marketing genius.
(By the way, yes, I do prefer Vieux to Nouveau).
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>> Ah. That would explain it then. They call the thin second-rate stuff 'Nouveau'
We've got there in the end, AC! Please feel free to lightly tap your head with the next empty wine bottle that comes your way.
Last edited by: Clk Sec on Tue 8 Mar 11 at 08:32
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My father's rule of thumb when judging wine was to pick bottles with real corks and lead foil.
He kept the foil from every single bottle he had drunk over a lifetime, intending one day to melt it all down and cast into an ingot. He left it too late, as one would, but I was happy recently to respect his wishes and create an impressive and useless paperweight.
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Old food - VxFan
