We took the girls to the opening night of our agricultural fair last night. It was not as much fun as usual. The first night is 1$10.00 bracelett night meaning for $10.00 you can go on all the rides for the one flat fee. We don’t do carnivals or amusement parks so we hadno problem with letting the kids do this. The propblem we did have is that the livestock doesn’t all arrive until today so by going last night we missed a lot of the stuff we most enjoy. We are expecting a big storm today to make the fair a giant mud pit this afternoon so it was go last night or maybe not go at all. Most of locals go on Saturday. Last night seemed to be a lot of out of towners. There were just too many hollowed eyed teens for my taste. I stuck pretty close to my “too pretty for her own good” daughter. I was a lot more aware of how much junk was there too. The cheap plactic toys from China neverbothered me before but they do now. There was guy selling fried cheesecake (yuk) but the man who used to sell corn on the cob was not around. I don’t know. It just felt different to me. I won’t go on bracelett night again in spite of the savings. It just had a bad vibe to it.
I got home and was quite happy to start loading my new freezer. I plan to fill it with the food from the two smaller freezers and defrost those. I was not happy with all of the old food I found. I found a few packages of meat that have been there for months (years). I had not freezer wrapped them so they were all dried out and awful looking. I expect they are still good to eat. Just (just!) the flavor will be affected. So today’s poll is this. Would you eat old meat if it had been frozen for 2 years? 1 year? Why or why not? I have some lamb too. The chops look good but I don’t know about the ground meat.
I can see why people used to have pasta night and fish night and meatloaf night. It does make the organization of a kitchen food supply a lot easier. For those of use with big gardens and food animals or those who store food, this is no small problem. We have a lot of blood, sweat, tears and money tied up in our pantries and freezers. I need to get serious about this. We waste too much food in this country and I do not wish to be a part of that. Tonight. we are eating some stew beef that has, quite frankly, seen better days. We are going to eat some of the dried peas that I put up this spring and pull potatoes to serve with it. With a lot of gravy, my kids will eat most anything. Tomorrow it will be the chicken and on Sunday, I am serving a pot luck with the one piece of fish, the 6 left behind meatballs, the 2 chicken wings and a creamed vege dish that will incorporate a lot of the bottom of the bag vegetables that need to go. The best thing about my new freezer is the compartments. I will be able to put all of the pork in one bin, the chicken in another and so on. I am committing to eating from a different bin each night with 3 nights a week devoted to a vegetarian meals that will use up some of my 75 pound stash of dried beans. It is so convenient to go for the canned beans that I ignore the others. I also have to start eating the dried pasta. I have mountains of it. My kids hate the dried stuff and only want fresh.
All of these disjointed thoughts are connected in some way that has to do with waste and respect for the planet and what we think things are worth. It is too early in the morning and I am operating on far too little sleep to connect them well. I just have this feeling, this inner sense that things are changing. Our wasteful, self-indulgent lifestyles are not going to be sustainable any longer. The kind of excess that made it possible for me to have the luxury of losing a pound of stew beef is disappearing. I have to see this as a good thing although it will be a hard lesson for us to learn.
August 28, 2009 at 7:58 am
For the poll: I would eat the meat that had been in the freezer for a couple of years. I would just make it into some sauce heavy dish so that the loss of flavor wasn’t as noticable. Freezers are wonderful tools, but they do have their drawbacks. I lost all of my freezer food (except for a few veggies) in the ice storm last winter, then due to a malfunction, I lost a lot a couple of months later. I am now going to can as much meat as possible, so I won’t get that nasty feeling in the pit of my stomach ever again.
August 28, 2009 at 8:44 am
1 year definitely, 2 years not so much. I guess the fried cheesecake man has to sell what people want or go out of business. Isn’t it sad that its come to this that we even now have to fry cheesecake? We have tv commercials and big business to blame.
August 28, 2009 at 8:46 am
I agree. I actually like canned hamburger and chicken but I don’t know about pork chops.
August 28, 2009 at 9:08 am
If the meat were in my deep-freezer and identifiable, I’d eat it. Of course, I’d eat anything if it’s chicken-fried. Except cheesecake.
August 28, 2009 at 9:46 am
Yes to the meat frozen for two years.
August 28, 2009 at 11:26 am
Have and will eat 1 year freezer meat…highly doubtful after that.
Sorry about the fair…it’s sad when a tradition that you look forward to changes that way.
August 28, 2009 at 11:37 am
Yes, I’d eat the meat, too. If the texture seemed weird, I’d gravy or sauce it up.
That, or grind it up, add a bunch of spices and what-not and make a meatloaf. Can’t help ya with the porkchops, though …
August 28, 2009 at 11:49 am
I would go up to a year – I’ve even done it with Salmon. But not 2. I’m squeamish and as my husband says, it’s just not worth it. If the family gets sick (even if it is mild), does it outweigh the cost of one piece of meat? I’ve been known to practically cry over a cracked egg and to rescue a dropped tomato from some obscure recess in the garden. I just hate good food going to waste and I don’t do pork, so no pigs around here. We are about to get goats though. Do they eat most anything like I’ve heard from rumors?
I’m trying to mend my freezer ways and keep a sharpie pen close at hand for labeling things with the date. I’m not always successful, but I am better at it!
August 28, 2009 at 1:08 pm
I’d probably use the meat from 2 years unless it looked/smelled bad. i’d cook it and see how it turned out. If it’s not to human taste, but still good, my cat would probably eat it with gusto.
I’m always losing some canned food at the back of the cupboard that’s long out of date.
peace to all, Shamba
August 28, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Agree with others: 1 yr, no doubt. 2 yrs, not so much. I am guilty of the same thing you are going through, and need (desperately) to get to the bottom of my freezer. 2 notes:
1 – Cut off whatever is seriously gross looking, salvage the rest. 2 – I am SO sold on my food saver keeping freezer helping in this area (not that I am as diligent as I should be)
August 28, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Couldn’t help but comment on your poll. Frozen 2 years?? Try 36,000 years! See below.
One of the best-documented accounts of a prehistoric meal comes at the end of “Frozen Fauna of the Mammoth Steppe” (1990), by Alaska zoology professor Dale Guthrie. After successfully unearthing and preserving “Blue Babe,” a 36,000-year-old steppe bison found near Fairbanks in 1979, Guthrie’s team celebrates by simmering some leftover flesh from Babe’s neck “in a pot of stock and vegetables.” The author reports that “the meat was well aged but still a little tough, and it gave the stew a strong Pleistocene aroma.”
August 28, 2009 at 2:58 pm
First, let me welcome all of the newcomers here. It is so much fun to hear about what folks around the world are doing with their hearth and homes. I am stewing the beef I found with a lot of onions and some foraged oyster mushrooms. it smells wonderful and the kids are clomoring for dinner (it’s only 3:00)so I must be doing something right.
August 28, 2009 at 3:21 pm
So, what time is dinner?
August 28, 2009 at 3:41 pm
I need to clean out my freezer big time. I know there are things we packaged in plastic containers that have been there since we moved into our home 4 years ago. As far as hamburger, if it is loaded with freezer burn, we get rid of it. 1 year more than likely, if packaged well, 2 years, bit iffy.
August 28, 2009 at 4:13 pm
I have a compost pile in the way back that I use to feed the crows. I just put 5 pounds of freezer burnt suet out there for them that got forgotten in a corner of the freezer.
I loath freezer burnt meat so I’m very, very careful with my freezer rotation so if it’s freezer burnt, the crows get it.
Feeding them on the way back pile kept them out of the garden. That’s where twice boiled bones go and any meat scraps and it’s been amazing how little vermin we have near the garden but that pile gets flattened regularly!
August 28, 2009 at 4:57 pm
We just got up from the table. It was really good, especially the tomatoes. When there are so few, you really enjoy the ones that made it.
August 29, 2009 at 9:32 am
I sift the dry ingredients together to be sure they are well mixed before I add to the wet stuff. I don’t actually sift either. I just mix really well with a fork. I got rid of my sifter because it took up a lot of space and I never used it.