The longevity of certain dairy

I need to start a new tact on this blog. Let's face it I'm not adding new recipes with any regularity. But that doesn't mean I'm not cooking or thinking about food. So I'm retooling this blog to be about food, but not necessarily cooking it.

So let's venture into an area that few talk about. Spoilage. Or really the lack there of. I've discovered that certain dairy items keep much longer than you or the manufacturer might believe.

Let's start with a few easy ones. Unopened sour cream or unopened yogurt basically keep for 3-7 months which for dairy is "forever." If we have unopened sour cream in the fridge, I won't buy another one, no matter how old it is, because it is still good to me (that's shorthand for my opinion not necessarily my wife's). Once opened though, all bets are off. With sour cream you've got maybe a month. Yogurt not even that.

More interesting is milk. The less fat it has, the longer it keeps. Half and half is iffy. I've had many a carton go bad shortly after the expiration or even before the expiration. Ironically, the half and half carton that stays good the longest is also in the biggest. It is from from Costco, which in Norther California sells stuff from Producers Dairy. This stuff stays good through the whole carton about 40% of the time which is amazing given it takes 2-3 weeks to use up. About a 1/3 of the time we get a bad carton, which goes bad by the mid point, but that's how tricky half and half is in general. In order, I buy from Costco, Trader Joes and then Safeway and then Albertsons. The Costco item is not ultra-pasteurized either, so it is by far my favorite half and half and it ss the cheapest to boot.

Whole milk keeps perhaps two weeks past its expiration if unopened. The next grade, 2% low fat is good for 2-3 weeks. And while I don't drink non-fat, I won't hesitate to open a carton of 1% low-fat that is a month past its expiration, with reasonable expectations it is still good.

There is a routine I use in testing milk. First, give it a good sniff. Next, optionally, is have someone else smell it, say your spouse. You may get a mild rejection with some commentary like "No! Why do you always ask me to smell rotten food?" Next, pour out a small cup and walk over to the kitchen sink, lean over it, and taste a small bit. Be prepared to spew it out, immediately. In particular, do not let any of it get to the back of your mouth where some of it might be swallowed involuntarily. Swish it around, tasting it. Then spit most of it out, even if it seems reasonable. Swallow what remains. And now you can make an informed judgement.

In fact, I opened a carton that was almost three months past its expiration a week ago, and did the routine as I thought it might still be good. (This was Trader Joe's 1% and the expiration date was Dec 02. This was done in the last week of Feb.) It all seemed OK, until the final swallow, where I picked up the odd flavor of something yogurt-esque. It was not rotten, but it wasn't fresh. I reluctantly poured it over my cereal. And after one spoonful, I had to toss the whole thing. This was not a good yogurt taste.

And finally I would be remiss to not mention the piece of manchego cheese I found yesterday. I think it was 2 months old. It had some grey/white mold growing on it. I was desperate for something to cleanse my palate to help me enjoy the red wine I was having. So I cut off a piece and cut/scraped off the mold. This was a bit challenging as the cheese had hardened (aka dried out), and was rock hard in places. I finally got my fully clean piece, and it was like a Parmesan now both in texture and in flavor. Tasty.

End note, after a night out on the counter, the mold had turned black. Two months of cold and all it could muster was a light grey. I guess it was just waiting for the right growing conditions. And yes, this is how they teach you not to end a piece of writing.