For as long as I can remember, I’ve regularly had salami sandwiches during my lunch break. I typically pack them at 7 in the morning and eat them at 12 so that means that there’re out of the fridge for 5 hours or so. Not a big deal.
But there’s a heatwave in Belgium right now with temperatures like 86-95°F or even above and that makes me wonder. These temperatures are very high for Belgium but not by no means unusual in the summer (let’s say 15 days all in all). I don’t have a fridge where I work and I sometimes toss my work bag not far from a window, directly in the sunlight.
I don’t remember ever getting sick. Is that because the salami is so loaded with preservatives that 5 hours isn’t enough for anything harmful to grow or have I just been lucky?
By the way, I’m talking about pre-sliced, packaged, greasy salami. The sort you buy in a supermarket, not the ultra-dry, tastier sticks that you find at an upscale deli.
Salami is loaded with salt (it is called salami for a reason) and dry cured. The fact that it’s coming out of a greasy package shouldn’t matter. Bacteria cannot grow in fat and rancidification takes a really long time, and even if the fats get rancid, it won’t harm you (though it will taste terrible).
Operating on the assumption you do not take any type of lunchbox/cooler with you, try this:
Take a sandwich sized plastic Ziploc® style baggie and place a small amount of water in it - enough to form a layer when frozen.
Freeze it overnight by laying it on a flat surface in your freezer.
Put it in your lunch sack directly on your sandwich as a refrigerant, and it will last quite some time. I’ve used this method in a pinch when I didn’t have my small lunch cooler.
I’ve found the name brand baggies hold up quite well and can be reused a number of times before failing. Double-bag if you are worried about leakage.
We can recycle these bags where I live here in Vermont, but just toss otherwise.
If forming the ice in a flat shape is a hassle, then use a couple ice cubes as an alternative. Doesn’t work quite as well, but is adequate.
Good idea although I’m not worried about it. I’ve done this for at least 30 years (school, university and work) in all sorts of circumstances and weather conditions and don’t remember ever getting sick. With the current heat wave, I was wondering why and it seems that it’s the tons of preservatives and relatively short time out of the fridge that keep my sandwiches safe to eat, with or without mayo.
And by the way, nice post/username combo…
Well, I was considering hummus but you’ve just given me an idea :D.
Yep. Commercial mayo is not a good breeding ground for bacteria. All the acid, oil, and salt help it out.
And, yeah, salami is made for preservation. It can be purely salt cured, but usually there’s also a nitrate in it to stave of botulism and keep it from spoiling in general. You’ll be fine. I used to keep a log of salami hanging to slice off as needed in my kitchen at room temperature, no air conditioning, for weeks at a time (sometimes even a couple of months) without any issue.
As implied above, bacteria can only grow in media where the concentration of water is higher than that within the bacteria’s cell contents. That means salty cured meats, mayo unmixed with other items, honey, and so on won’t go bad unless they are moistened/diluted.
I once spent weeks driving around in my un AC ed junker car in the Deep South in the summer with a Hickory Farms “Yard of Beef” stick that I gnawed on when hungry.
The temperatures will be lower this week but a heat wave in Belgium is not that rare. I am pretty sure we had the same temperatures last year and the year before. The current one is just a bit longer (5 days instead of 2-3).