Greetings Oh Padawan Chefs,
I’m going to start today with a little bit of housekeeping. If you are visiting the site, you will notice on the right hand side a couple of new items. I’ve added two options to subscribe to the blog, either by email or by using an RSS feed. Hopefully these will make it easier for folks to enjoy what I’m doing here.
Now, on with our show.
About a week or so, my lovely wife sent me an article from Food Network titled 10 Foods You Aren’t Storing Properly. We’re going to talk about this article a little bit and maybe add a couple things to it, because that’s how I roll.
The 10 foods that the article lists are: Fresh Herbs, Tomatoes, Spices, Bread, Raw Meat, Garlic, Berries, Avocado, Mango, and Oil.
Obviously they are talking about fresh CUT herbs as, if you’re lucky enough to have a small herb planter on your window sill, that’s where they should stay. I find it very interested that the author says “this is how you should do it” but doesn’t once touch on why. Oxygen, I tell you. Oxygen does some bad things to foods that are stored. Food Safety Site describes how Oxygen tcan have negative and deteriorating effects on fats, nutrients, and flavors by promoting conditions that enhance bacterial and enzyme growth that results in food spoilage. Water also plays a major part in the spoilage process by giving an arena for bacterial growth to occur. Using the recommendations from Food Network’s article, the paper towels will help to absorb free water while the plastic wrap will help to reduce oxygen exposure.
I find what they say about tomatoes interesting. Personally, I generally like my produce cold. I’ve never experienced tomatoes being mealy or flavorless due to refrigerator chill. But then, I either use tomatoes quickly or have them WAY too long and end up with tomato mush. I may just be missing the whole mealy and flavorless stage.
I’m going to talk about dried ground spices and oils at the same time since both are recommended to be kept in cool, dry, dark cupboards. Light, air (there’s that pesky oxygen thing again), and heat don’t spoil dried herbs and spices really, but the flavor and composition do deteriorate. Using a dried herb or spice that has deteriorated wont really harm your food, but all that goodness that you’re trying to impart is no longer there… so why add something that isn’t really adding anything to your dish. Oils that are exposed to those aforementioned evils will turn rancid. While there is some belief that consuming rancid oil may cause problems later on such as cancer or heart disease, it doesn’t make you immediately ill. More importantly it doesn’t smell good and tastes horrible. Personally I’m not fond of creating food that tastes horrible, so I say stay away from rancid. For a little more about oils, check out my previous post #3: 1st Topic…. 10 Mistakes
Ms Dana Angelo White makes an important differentiation when it comes to bread. Fresh bread is ideally stored at room temperature, while manufactured sliced bread is better stored cool. She recommends the freezer. I keep our bread in the fridge with little problems. I have noticed when keeping bread in the fridge it tends to last a little bit longer without getting hard if I rotate it so that it is not sitting on one side for extending periods. Just a little trick that I do.
As far as raw meat is concerned, do exactly what the article says. We’re going to go more in depth about meat and meat storage later, but Ms White offers a good start.
Most fruits and vegetable, obviously avocados and mangoes are no different here, do very well being stored at room temperature. What you want to know here is the ripeness. Storing fruits and veggies at room temperature does not increase the life of the produce at all. Just like we discussed earlier, oxygen and temperature are the enemies of freshness and shelf life. Storing at room temperature will promote ripening, because ripening is part of the spoilage process. Once the produce is ripe, you would want to move it to the fridge and this will give you a few more days once the produce is ripe. One weird exception to this is bananas, which produce the hormone ethylene as part of their ripening process. Ethylene greatly speeds up the ripening process. Bananas can be placed in the refrigerator when they are optimally ripe, but this will not prevent the peel from browning or blackening. Personally I have found it best to buy bananas in small batches and store them hanging on a hook so that they are not touching anything else.
That’s about all we have for right now. Stay tuned for more posts. Remember that I can be reached by email through my profile just there on the right or by comments or questions left here. Comments can also lead to future topics and I answer all questions that I am able to.
Until next time, May the Food be With You.