In May 2007, I embarked on a fun adventure called "Meals for Month," wherein I prepared, in one day over Memorial Day weekend, 20 fully cooked meals to freeze. There was a recipe book and ingredients list all planned out for me to follow. I purchased all the ingredients over the course of a few months (getting most of them on sale), and felt dang good about myself when all the meals were finally prepared. I started at 9 am and finished at 4:30 pm or so. It was a long, hot, dishes-filled but productive day.
Over the next couple months, most of the meals were eaten. The really tempting ones went first... enchiladas, manicotti, chicken noodle soup. Some of the weirder ones it took me longer to get around to... shrimp creole, Chinese chicken salad, albondigas soup (whatever that means).
And one still sat in the freezer. Until last night.
So, 1.5 years later, we finished my Meals for a Month.
Well, I did. My husband refused to eat it.
"What!?!" I declared. "It's food! And it was frozen! It doesn't matter when I bought the ham for the Stir-Fry Ham; it's fine!" I vehemently defended the ham, circa April 2007.
He didn't buy it.
I was kind of offended.
We ended the evening with a small chat where I admitted the origins of the dinner were suspect, but his accusations made me particularly defensive and I just wanted to be appreciated for trying, even if my try this time did not equal success. It was a nice resolution, so we are still married (and for the most part, happily).
So.
- Was my husband wrong/right to refuse to eat 1.5-year-old food?
- Was I wrong/right to expect he'd have no problem eating 1.5-year-old food?
- Would you have eaten 1.5-year-old food?
- How long do you keep food in the freezer?
- Does it really matter how long it is frozen? I mean, is there some formula where the longer food is frozen the less edible and more inedible it becomes?
I wonder if there was a "food in the freezer" class before/after college that I was supposed to take and didn't. I'm the kind of person that thinks food = money, so I don't usually throw stuff away or let it go to waste.
Anyway. I'm looking forward to learning something from this.
8 comments:
1) I can't say I blame him, but I would have insisted he at least try it.
2) I would have had a mental back-up plan in place, just in case.
3) Yes, depending on the following.
4) Not very long, because I have a small freezer. If I had a chest freezer (which I will someday), I'd store more stuff, and probably for longer.
5) Yes it does matter how long stuff is frozen. There are several things that can affect the quality of your frozen food after it's been frozen. How do you package it? Do you vacuum pack or at least suck the air out of bags? Do you use freezer bags instead of storage bags? Do you just use plastic wrap over a casserole dish, or do you use a tight-fitting lid, or freezer paper and foil? If you store loaves of bread, do you put them inside a paper bag to prevent freezer burn? If you freeze fresh meat, do you wrap the sealed package in freezer paper? These will all help extend the life of your frozen foods.
(Albondigas soup is quite simply, meatball soup...I love it!)
I've heard that frozen food shelf-life is 6 months. We have a tiny freezer, so things don't tend to last longer than that unless we just really don't want to consume them.
As for your meal, Jason is far more adventuresome than I am. I would probably have been grossed out. He would have checked for freezer burn, and then, most happily have dug in.
Well, I probably would have eaten it (if it wasn't totally frostbitten!) but after a year and a half I bet it didn't have much nutritional value :-) I can understand not wanting to eat it, though, and wouldn't have gotten too mad at Mike for refusing (though I would have given him a hard time).
So sorry, my dear, but I don't think I would have eaten it either... I'm pretty obsessive about food expiration, and I'm pretty sure 1.5 years qualifies as expired! BUT, good for you for trying! I can't imagine the amount of work, preparation and planning that had to go into making all those meals in one day... I'm impressed!
i'm a picky eater, so i wouldn't have eaten it. my husband would have though because he's like you... food = money. we had spaghetti a few weeks ago and the hamburger meat smelled ripe, not rank, to me. i could barely be in the same room while it was cooking. but my husband fed it to the kids and he ate it himself, then got mad at me for throwing it away in a week. no one got sick or anything but i just couldn't bring myself to eat it because of the smell.
I know that my husband has an aversion to food that has been frozen too long or is leftover too long. It stems from his childhood. His mom saved everything! They just scraped off the "bad bits." I make it sound worse than it is, but it has scarred him.
I wouldn't have eaten the meal, or made MY husband eat it. But YOUR husband should have given it a try, knowing that you think that food=money and no food should be left behind.
I'm impressed that you made those meals though! Very industrious of you!
I hate to say it, Angela, but I don't think I would've eaten it, either... the freezer burn alone would have had me gagging. I can't STAND freezer burn.
Then again, and especially when it's something you MADE I can understand how you'd hate to throw it away. We've eaten some odd concoctions for that very reason.
Just don't make the ham stir fry again, doesn't sound like it was much of a hit! :o)
Me again. This time I'm tagging you for a meme. Head to The Creamery for details.
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