Carefully zip-locked light miso.
It’s like yeast. I don’t use a lot of it, or very often, but it takes a careful eye because it’s alive in some ways I don’t even wanna think about.
Yeast doesn’t look quite so yucky, though, even in it’s natural state. Miso is pretty squishy, no matter what.
I’m gonna tactfully ignore the contents of the veggie drawer. That’s either dessicated cilantro or flat leaf parsley. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Last week I threw away some Tupperware that had Thanksgiving leftovers in it. I don’t know what it was in the container, except that it was green and fuzzy and it was crawling up the inside of the container.
It was so bad I couldn’t take it out with a pair of tongs. I had to use a pair of other tongs to grab the first set of tongs to get rid of it, that’s how ooky it was.
Actually, I didn’t, but that’d be a great new invention. Get your set of Leftover Disposal Tongs today! One package contains eight sturdy disposable tongs that you can throw away along with that dead bird on the porch, or the Ziploc full of moldy lettuce puree!
A few years ago I inherited a bread making machine and whipped up a batch of sourdough starter that I housed in a clear sealed canister. For a month or so I followed the directions to the letter, “feeding” the mass with flour and stirring at specified intervals. After a while I lost interest in the project; the machine returned to its box and the starter was shoved to the back of the fridge.
It’s still there, over two years later.
I’m looking at it now. There’s a thick stratum of speckled tan stuff, presumably flour, but more interesting is the layer of dark brown liquid (roughly 100 mL) atop that. Based on the “active experiment” days, I think it’s partly alcohol, but what sort? Some rare and marvelous ale, or a gut-twisting poison? I’m scared to open the container to clean it, let alone sample the mystery brew. Guess I’ll keep it until I can have it tested by a lab, or until this dump falls down in an earthquake and renders the problem moot.
I’m not as scared of opening our freezer now (since our oldest son moved away 6 years ago). He took an interest in trapping and maintained a trap line during trapping season. You never knew what may be waiting when you opened the freezer door (or what may be hanging in the garage waiting for you to bump into it in the dark).
As for the fridge, I keep a pretty close watch on the things the rest of the family tries to store in there. When it starts looking like a Tupperware convention, I start investigating. Along with everyone else, the liquified veggies in the crisper drawer are the worst (nothing like that rotten broccoli smell permeating the entire fridge when you open the door).
Two words…
Wasabi Horseradish.
You try eating it…now that’s scary.
I don’t know what’s in my fridge. Every so often I open the door and green sludge crawls out the bottom. Then I slam the door shut and decide that now is the perfect time to start that diet.
Not exactly the fridge, but during the confusion of the Big Blackout, we forgot to clean out the big freezer in the utility room. A couple weeks later, I opened it. To this day, just the memory of the smell makes me queasy. I threw out four or five large trash bags of noxious hamburger, steaks, and chicken. I pride myself on having a strong stomach, but I couldn’t stop gagging while I cleaned that thing out.
I recently moved, and with that moving, I had to clean out my fridge. Now, I’ve had this fridge for about 7 years. It’s one of those nice Maytags that are really freaking deep, with the sliding shelves, and enough space to stuff a couple of cows full and whole into.
Well, about 4 years ago I made a killer batch of BBQ’d ribs, and put the leftovers into a tuppaware container and wrote the date on it (a habit I got from canning), tossed it in the fridge and promptly forgot about it.
Well, apparently it had gotten pushed to the deepest darkest corner on the bottom shelf, and had resisted or created a means to evade detection, as all of the times I cleaned out horrible things out of the fridge, I never saw it.
That is until I did the Fridge purge in order to ready it for moving.
I swear that the container GROWLED at me! And as I moved it quickly to the trashcan, as carefully as I could so that it couldn’t bite me, it had apparently developed a special defense/attack. As I put it in the containment unit (the trash can) I heard a small pop, which was apparently was the lid of the container, and then 3 seconds later, the immediate area was engulfed in what quite possibly the most horrid smelling thing I have EVER smelled in my life (of which I have been in the company of some pretty horrid things.).
I quickly took the trashcan out to the dumpster and just tossed the WHOLE damn thing in, trashcan and all. It was two days before the trash truck came, and now, 2 weeks later, you can STILL smell it around the dumpster.
If it’s furry and it purrs or makes sudden moves, be careful!
If cabinets count, when I was 15 or so I was cleaning out our congested cabinets and found a few jars from when my mother canned. Mind you, she stopped canning when she had children.
The oldest one was some unidentifiable brown glop labeled 7/1/82. The year I found this was late 1999. So yes, there was 17 year old canned stuff in our cabinets… :eek:
The scariest thing about the scariest thing in my freezer is that I actually ate 4 bites of it 3 days ago.
About 5 months ago a friend convinced me that I should try turkey burgers. I gave them a shot, but ultimatly didn’t like them. I stuck the leftovers in the freezer so they wouldn’t stink until trash day. Since then, I forget themevery trash-day.
So, 3 nights ago a friend came by to watch movies. We were drinking beer and he decided not to chance driving home, so he crashed at my place. He’s one of those bizarre ‘morning people’, so he was up long be for I was.
The next AM I hear, “Hey, get up, I made you a cheese burger.”
I took about 4 bites of the cheeseburger before asking (groggily) “Did you go to the store?” I had realized the only burger stuff in my fridge was the very old turkey.
“No,” answered the Chef, “This was all in your fridge.”
Apparently the look on my face was quite scary. He’d already eaten a cheeseburger and 1/2 made of 5 month old turkey burgers. I never finished what he had made for me–just incase.
The good news is, neither of us got sick. I’m a little amazed.
I have some easter eggs in there - are they scary yet? Also, the ham is still in there.