Monday, March 19, 2007

Spices

When was the last time you checked the dates of the spices in your cupboard?

Sunday the family was here for dinner to celebrate Paul’s birthday. My daughter wanted some cayenne pepper to spice the green beans she was cooking and went searching through my spice cabinet. She found what she was looking for, but wasn’t sure she should use what she found. The can had no expiration date, but the McCormick Company packaged it in 1977. Daughter was laughing pretty hard while she showed it to all of us. We wondered if we could sell it on eBay. Would anyone want a half full can of 30 year old red pepper? We used it, but I think it has lost some of its zing.

Today I went through the cabinet checking dates. I found some evaporated milk that said best used by June 2000, and some Bisquick that expired in 2004. Everything else was current dates. I wonder how long a can of milk be stored safely?

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Sounds like a common occurrence to have expired spices and such. I might get to that job if I had a maid to do the other stuff.
And spice cans that age are bringing $15 to $20 in the flea markets down here.
We have a salvage food store where my parents live we call the Bent Can store. We are always looking at the expiration dates to figure if we want to take a chance. Stuff like cereal and cake mixes we don't get because they can be old tasting but anything canned or bottled we buy if it isn't more than 6 months past. Works every time!

AM Kingsfield said...

The sudafed in your medicine cabinet that expired in 200 still worked OK.

Anne said...

i found a bunch of expired stuff when our office moved, stashed lunch options, medicines, bandaids

Unknown said...

Band-aids expire?