Rotisserie chickens aren't even the end of the line. When unsold, fresh meats, fruits and veggies that have passed their sell-by points can be "cooked up for in-store deli and salad counters before they spoil," per no less a source than a consultant to the supermarket industry.
Thinking back with horror on all the times you picked up a prepared meal on the way home from a long day of work, then demolished it within ten minutes of walking through the door? Don't panic just yet.
Huh?
Morons! Pathetic morons in my employ, stealing my precious money!
So is Mr Burns a rentier-manager or is Smithers running so much of the day to day to make them a rentier/manager partnership?
1
Yeah, I don't get it either. These "EVERYDAY LIFE IS ACTUALLY REALLY GROSS" sorts of news stories just reinforces how unnecessarily neurotic we can be. If it hasn't killed you up until now, it's probably not going to kill you in the future either.
My father (a white collar professional with an advanced degree) worked near a supermarket where they'd put all their just past sell-by date stuff out the back. He'd frequently take the old unwanted food home and we would eat it. Unless it's thoroughly moldy or noticeably spoiled, most old food won't kill you. On my cheap father, apparently he also got our TV out of an actual dumpster, and we had the TV for about 10 years. My sister and I would have fun changing the news anchor's jacket from purple to orange by tilting our heads.
These "EVERYDAY LIFE IS ACTUALLY REALLY GROSS" sorts of news stories just reinforces how unnecessarily neurotic we can be.
But I don't get how it's even supposed to be gross. Especially if you eat it as soon as you get home.
I'd like to think there is a clear line between neurosis and not being willing to eat out of a dumpster when you have other options.
I am going to rotisserie cook a chicken that is past its sell-by date mere hours from now!
Also we used to find some quality stuff in the dumpster. Dunkin Donuts especially was good pickin's.
5
I think it's supposed to be gross because it was (30 seconds) past the sell-by date, but you still ate it. The eating it as soon as you get home I think is supposed to emphasize how you unknowingly enthusiastically ingested old food.
But the sell-by date is not the use-by date (which in turn is conservative), and also the article specifically says "before they spoil".
If it's 30 seconds past the sell-by date, it's probably a week before the use-by date. "Sell-by" dates are a well known scam which ought to be generally ignored.
10, 11
Right, which is why to any normal person it's not gross at all, and instead a great way to not unnecessarily waste a lot of perfectly fine food. The author was just being stupid.
Am I reading this comment thread right? It seems that you're all pointing out how we are surrounded by people with bad judgement if not actually idiots.
Correcting other people's errors of fact and judgement for recreation is OK, right?
By 14, I mean that I disagree with the second article's summary, not that everyone here is a jerk.
I'm consistently amazed at how paranoid about food safety a lot of (generally educated-middle-class-y) people I know are. Most of them keep their onions, eggs, and garlic in the fridge. I even had a friend who would throw out store-bought tomato sauce if she hadn't used it up within a week of opening the jar, for safety reasons. It must be a fairly recent cultural tic, since I have older cookbooks that explain how you should try to keep the meat you buy in the shade rather than letting it sit out in the sun, but how it came about is a mystery to me.
That said, while the author of the chicken piece is entirely right about his 'seriously people calm down' attitude, this is just wrong: I bought the raw chicken anyway. I took it home, rubbed it in butter and herbs, shoved a lemon half up its butt, and roasted it low and slow for the majority of the day.
It's a chicken, for god's sake, not pork shoulder. You can roast it at low temperatures, though I'm far from convinced that it's better than more normal roasting temperatures, but even then it's not going to take more than a couple hours.
Am I reading this comment thread right? It seems that you're all pointing out how we are surrounded by people with bad judgement if not actually idiots.
I don't think it's possible to be surrounded by one person, namely the author of OP.1.
The author was just being stupid.
No, the author was setting up the point made in 10, by anticipating the reader's paranoia.
Immediately below the line quoted in 1 is the bold text "safe as milk", so, come off it, Ginger.
19: I do not think this thread is a representative sample of how people feel about such things.
Blume was complaining this weekend about my mom's habit of treating the sell-by date as an ironclad rule for goodness, so not only should food past the sell-by date be preëmptively thrown out, food (like, milk, say) that has been open for weeks but is not past the sell-by date is per se still good.
18
Mea culpa, I didn't read the article. If this is the case, then the author was anticipating his audience was stupid.
Am I reading this comment thread right? It seems that you're all pointing out how we are surrounded by people with bad judgement if not actually idiots.
Isn't it an established fact we're all kind of jerks?
I think refrigerating eggs is a good idea, garlic and onions don't matter. And even visible mold isn't likely to be a problem, it's bacteria that can make you sick which you can detect by smell but not usually sight. We were on vacation last week and brought a bunch of food to the rented house and my wife was all worried about the butter, cream cheese, parmesian being in the car for FOUR HOURS! without proper refrigeration. I pointed out that when cheese is made it sits out for weeks to months.
My understanding is that the safety of un-refrigerated eggs comes from a different policy about how eggs are treated before being sold. In the US they are usually washed, which makes them cosmetically more lovely but makes them more porous and thus subject to contamination. In the UK they aren't and thus are safe to leave out.
Depending on season and latitude, my worry about having butter in the car for four hours would be that I'd have to transfer it out with a spoon. I do refrigerate eggs if I'm not using them in the next day or two.
I think refrigerating eggs is a good idea, garlic and onions don't matter.
I thought it was well established that onions are to be worn on one's belt.
I refrigerate onions because I don't really have any better place to put them. My root cellar is out of order.
That said, while the author of the chicken piece is entirely right about his
The author is a woman.
Isn't it an established fact we're all kind of jerks?
Well, everyone else is.
re: 27
This, yeah. I put all veg in the fridge, but that's because we have no other suitable place to stick it. Our 'store cupboard' is laughably small and completely full of dried food, tins, spices, etc.
I'd never slow cook a chicken, though, ffs.
The Missus views the sell-by date as being Holy Writ. I ask her occasionally if a particular item in the refrigerator now belongs to me.
Slow-cooked chicken, if you have something releasing moisture into it (like a lemon or a beer can or whatever), is awesome. It is, however, true that it shouldn't take more than a couple of hours.
Immediately below the line quoted in 1 is the bold text "safe as milk", so, come off it, Ginger.
I'm not disputing that the article does eventually acknowledge it's safe, as if it were in doubt. But the entire premise* of it is that you'd think there'd be something to worry about, which you wouldn't if it didn't tell you that.
* There's a secondary premise about cost, but if you believe the comments that's just wrong, because it doesn't account for size. I can't judge that point because I've never bought a rotisserie chicken from a supermarket.
32 is right in every respect.
We have a veg rack which we use for onions, potatoes, other roots and leafy greens. We tend to refrigerate tomatoes, peppers, salad veg. There's probably no logic to this, more immemorial usage.
entire premise* of it is that you'd think there'd be something to worry about, which you wouldn't if it didn't tell you that lots and lots of people, quite possibly a majority of people in the US, do.
I like to roast my own chickens because I get to roast potatoes and carrots underneath the chicken.
I like to roast my own chickens because for some reason cooking food on a grill makes me happy in a way that cooking food not on a grill totally fails to. Also, my grill has a rotisserie thinger, so of course I'm going to want to use that whenever possible. I really need to cook a duck one of these days.
entire premise* of it is that you'd think there'd be something to worry about, which you wouldn't if it didn't tell you that lots and lots of people, quite possibly a majority of people in the US, do.
A majority of Americans shun rotisserie chickens out of safety fears?
37: That's a lot of fat. Be careful not to start a fire.
They might if they knew the horrible truth about why they're cheap.
I'd never slow cook a chicken, though, ffs.
I recall reading somewhere, an article about cooking sous vide, I think, that there was a cookbook in the fifties or something that recommended cooking your meat at the temperature you wished it to be at when it was done. Chicken included.
39: the internet says to take the grill grates off and put a deep disposable aluminum pan underneath it, which makes sense to me. Also, one can put potatoes in that pan, which makes an extra-lot of sense.
YOU CANNOT HAVE ZEE DUCK. YOU CAN HAVE ZEE CHICKEN.
re: 32
Ah, well, I'd expect a decent sized chicken to take a couple of hours anyway. Perhaps it's just a misunderstanding of what 'slow' means in this case? With red meat I'd be thinking of really quite low temperatures and long times [way over 2 hours]. With chicken, I'd think of something like 350F for 2-3 hours depending on size.
We tend to refrigerate tomatoes
The texture of tomatoes is quite vulnerable to refrigeration. If you have any counter space to spare at all, you might try not refrigerating them -- they really are a good bit nicer that way.
re: 41
I guess is the slow cooking method ended up with the chicken at 70C+, all through, then fine. But if you were doing it at a really low temperature [i.e. close to 70C] I imagine that'd take ... a long time.
I'm only halfway through the jerk piece and I superhate that the counterpart to the jerk is a sweetheart. I do basically all the things listed as sweetheart behaviors, but fuck that shit. Jerk for life!
Jerk for life!
If only Dr. Heimlich had a sense of humor, that phrase would have already been taken.
If only Dr. Heimlich had a sense of humor, that phrase would have already been taken.
Or Dr. Sir Robert G. Edwards.
||
In the ongoing saga of my career satisfaction, a friend with a humanities PhD (no MSW, no license) just got an administrative position at a social service agency. I just wish my field didn't daily make me feel like a chump. I don't get calls back for admin jobs. Maybe if I left my expensive degree and decade of experience in the field off my resume it'd help.
}>
yes that is an angry play button with a furrowed brow. Or a longhorn. Or a typo.
The author of the jerk piece is not, perhaps, best situated for nuanced observations of human behavior.
Or
Gaetan Dugas!
Mr S-case, my condolences. If you would like to borrow a useless degree to get a better job, I have some.
Obviously, a guy with no MSW and no license can't even do fieldwork.
Obviously an MSW and a license don't make one capable of or qualified to do anything, but I have jumped through these hoops and it is frustrating to see that it's case-by-case whether they're required.
I thought it might be a case of the administrator being picked because they weren't legally allowed to do the field work.
Oh, sorry, I think I misread you. I'm not the loveliest today.
Don't worry about it. I wasn't very clear.
EnteringExiting a subway is an exercise in nudging past the dumb schmoes.
Fixed that. I run into people almost every day when I exit the subway. They shouldn't stand in front of the door while people are getting off the train.
For comparison's sake, there's a new place called The Daily Table that does this and only this, with the express purpose of providing cheap fresh food to the poor, and people fret.
Am I crazy in thinking there may be a size differential between rotisserie chickens (sub 4 lb) and raw chickens (seem to be in the 4-6 lb range?) I'm sure that explains some of the price difference.
Pre-cooked weight probably isn't that different.
60: But the chicken is going to weigh less after you cook it, right? Enough to accunt for the difference, I think. So by that, if all were equal, the rotisserie chicken should cost more per pound.
60, 61: Could be, I guess I'll have to go look now.
You could do science. I can do a power analysis to let you know how many chickens of each type you'd need to see if there is a weight difference.
Boy, that chicken article is strange. Cooking up the food that would otherwise go to waste is normal, the puzzle and sometimes the genius of the good housekeeper. How extremely handy that the grocery is keeping track of it! Probably they have specialized ovens to do it well! My grocer tells me when the chickens came out and when the next are due! And they charge me LESS? If I didn't live with someone allergic to every other thing on this green earth, I'd make a lot of use of that.
tl;dr what y'all said.
They shouldn't stand in front of the door while people are getting off the train.
They do that because they are jerks.
I liked the jerk piece. I am such a sweetheart I come out the other side. Jerks see a world full of opponents (other jerks) and chumps (sweethearts) and that perspective is just as valid as any other.