Those little bags of ketchup and mustard (and sweet and sour sauce)-I have never seen expiration dates on them. So, has anyone ever died from consuming a 30-year old bag of ketchup? I’m sure McDonald’s has sufficient turnover that you wouldn’t find an ancient bag of ketcup-but what about a smaller operation? Or are these things so loaded with preservatives that no bug can thrive in them?
An aged parcel of ketchup could become fairly exotic-smelling but I doubt it would kill anybody. Ketchup contains a lot of sugar… I happened to find out by accident that fermentation is what happens to it. At this Arby’s I once frequented, they had this habit of leaving the ketchup unrefrigerated well beyond whatever the leave-unrefrigerated-on-table date is. At first I thought it was just some nuance of the Arby’s ketchup until one day I got hold of a bottle that reeked thoroughly of the unmistakable products of alcoholic fermentation, after which I talked to the manager and got to the bottom of it.
Just think, 200 years from now when late-20th-century American food is considered haute cuisine on Mars or god knows where, they’ll probably be selling Heinz 57-years barrel-aged charcoal-filtered ketchup as an artisan condiment.
I picked up a mayonnaise packet at a fast food restaurant and, when I squeezed it on my sandwich, discovered that the contents had separated into some oily liquid and a gelatinous goo that vaguely resembled semen. I lost my appetite and never went back there.
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Moved to GQ
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