Harold McGee "On Cans"

[ForgeCorvus]

I've always looked at BBE Dates with scepticism...... It seems that Mr McGee does too

https://medium.com/lucky-peach/on-cans-7d86344def06

I found this article mentioned in "The Art of Eating through the Zombie Apocalypse" and then tracked it down.

[jansman]

Link don't work for me.

[Yorkshire Andy]

Link don't work for me.

Nor me ..

But I've fixed it I think

[Arzosah]

It works now. Purposely ageing food in cans. Yikes ... sounds good though, and no one's died

[jansman]

Where do folks find these articles? :lol: an interesting but slightly bonkers read!

It’s true that the canning process extends foods beyond their official expiration dates.

However, as a career butcher ( HACCP/ level 3 advanced food safety and two years with the Meat Hygiene Service), I will stick with proper storage ( sensible ambient temperatures), and regular rotation. I don’t take chances with food safety.

The problem with tinned food, if you can call it that, is that folks ( especially Preppers) buy It and don’t eat it. Then when/ if the time comes , it is basically an unfamiliar foodstuff. Not eating unfamiliar foods in an emergency is cited time and again in myriad survival books and websites.

Back in March when the Covid Panic started, we called in at a large Tesco near us. We couldn’t get a delivery ( we hate going food shopping!) People were piling, and I mean really piling tinned food into their trollies. I commented to my wife about the young woman in front of us, who had probably two dozen tins of potatoes, amongst other items. Now, I may be wrong, but I’ll bet they never got eaten. They were purchased for ‘ just in case’ , and fair play.

Canned food has to be part of your regular diet if it is part of your food storage system.We don’t store much rice anymore, as my wife has developed a total dislike of it. It may be the ultimate disaster storage food, but if she would sooner not eat than eat rice, then why store it? Any food you eat, you have to enjoy. We use a lot of tinned food here, and more so since I bought a copy of TheTin Can Cook, by Jack Monroe.

So remember the Preppers acronym, FIFO. First In,First Out. 50 year old cans of sardines ain’t my bag! :lol: :lol:

[ForgeCorvus]

The article was published in a (now defunct) magazine titled "Lucky Peach" in Issue 6: The Apocalypse Winter 2013 (copies are available, but change hands at totally stupid money).

I think the overclocking by heat is just a way of testing that any changes that happen are acceptable to you rather then saying thats how you should store your tins.

Interesting that the BBE is set by a "perceptible change" in flavour or texture rather then the food degrading.
Wine thats laid down has perceptible changes over the years, you don't pour away the Chateau Lafite '69 just because it doesn't taste the same now as it did then.

I'm going to see if I can find any more articles from that edition online, if I do I'll post them (or working links to them anyway)