I just bought a package of salami (“Naturale Salame”), and it smells a bit off. I got it two days ago, but the expiration date is October 2007. That seems a little odd–would it really be good for that long? Did they mean October 2006? It’s in a plastic ziploc package (the kind where you rip the little strip of plastic off the edge to open it) and it was completely sealed around the meat.
So, would you eat this salami? Is it dangerous? Will I regret it if I eat it? I probably won’t, because I think milk starts to taste bad a day or two before it actually expires, and the smell just puts me off. Does salami usually smell bad?
Difficult to say - salami very often smells a bit gamey anyway - it’s supposed to keep for a long long time, so a best before date of Oct 2007 would be nothing unusual on a vacuum-sealed pack.
Salami shouldn’t smell funky. I haven’t been around any since the summer, but I never remember it having a foul or displeasing smell really. I quite like salami.
I am really weird when it comes to food that could possibly be spoiled - I never take chances because I am terrified of food poisioning. It a food seems off to me, I pass.
Every time I have ignored the “inner voice” that said food was a little off I have regretted it. Trust your intuition. If it smells off go by that rather than the date.
Look, I like salami. I put metal mesh doors on my pantry to get good airflow for ageing salami. Good, correctly prepared, salami will be shelf stable for a long time, provided it isn’t sliced. The slices not so much, as every cut surface is a place where bugs can grow, and they will not only be the bugs that help salami age so tastefully.
FTR I was a food/industrial microbiologist, and much less paranoid about off food than most people. I will eat stuff that my husband goes “Euuuch” to. But if I think something is off? Nah, not worth the risk for the cost of throwing out a few dollars worth of food.
And of course, the high mortality rate is permanent too!
So, even if you decide to try it yourself, PLEASE don’t feed it to the young, the old, or the immune impaired.
Even if it is off, it may not be an E.coli contamination, there are many other fun bugs it could be. I’ll shut up now before I put people off their dinner :D.
IANAMB, but you could always cook the heck out of it. That’s what I did with the iffy bacon this Monday. The cream I left out overnight on Tuesday got cooked in a carrot cake, along with the past-due eggs and the wrinkled-up oranges. Today’s not-so-frozen-entree-due-to-badly-closing-office-fridge seemed fine after much microwaving…
Hmm. I assert that this was just a bad week for food around here. Google doesn’t show a recall under that name, but you can get your $$$ back from most decent grocery stores for reasons like that.
You could cook it , yes. However a lot of microbial toxins are thermostable - ie if toxins are already in the food cooking it will kill the bugs (though not any bacterial spores that may be present), but not affect any thermostable toxins already present. Cooking is likely to affect any thermolabile toxins to some degree though. Some bugs have an eachway bet and produce both thermostable and thermolabile toxins.
You know, unless he’s seriously starving, I’d just toss it.
My nose’s default status has been “disconnected” since the first year of college (four months a year smelling rotten-egg smells from the 2nd year labs, yummy), but I still can detect bad food before anybody else in the family. If it smells bad, toss!
The question really comes down to a cost/benefit question. Take, first, the money you spent on the salami, then consider being sick and miserable for a few days. Would you get sick to save the money? Also, how much will you enjoy eating salami that smells a little off?
This actually just isn’t true. The pathogens that cause food poisoning do not always cause food to smell bad and the processes and bacteria that cause food to smell bad are not always harmful.
Is it not true that a good dose of food poisoning is a quick and effective method of weight loss? You know, after the holidays and all, drop a few pounds take a couple days off work… It’s like a trip to the spa, except a violently erupting internal spa of doom.
Always looking on the bright side, aren’t ya? Cause if you didn’t, you’d be Bobothepessimist.
So, it looks like the votes are overwhelmingly against. Except for minlokwat. Now, if you’d triple-dog-dared me, I’d have to do it. But since it’s just a double-dog dare, I think I’ll play it safe and throw out the salami. I don’t have cats of my own, but I could feed it to all of the neighborhood cats. Or squirrels. Do squirrels eat salami? Next time, I’ll buy salami that’s not pre-sliced. Thanks for the info, everybody!
Google doesn’t show a recall under that name, but you can get your $$$ back from most decent grocery stores for reasons like that.