How are the mighty fallen

[desperance]

...So I come in from the shops and go straight through to the kitchen to unpack; and Barry's there, so I'm explaining this most unusual behaviour to him as I go:

"Look, these are croissants, I have to put these away before that Mac boy finds 'em; and these are chocolate bars, so ditto ditto; and this, this is real genuine cat food and we know he can razor-claw his way into these sacks, so..."

And I'm in mid-rant when it suddenly strikes me that I'm explaining this to Barry of all cats, wicked little Bazza who has proved himself entirely capable of razor-clawing on his own account; and since when did he become so much the epitome of virtue?

Since Mac moved in, of course. All things are comparative, and poor Baz has lost even his evil reputation, being put so thoroughly in the shade by whole new definitions of sinfulness...

Comments

[dedbutdrmng.livejournal.com]

Mentioning food made me think of this. Cos you know about food. Do you know how long you can keep dripping for? Before you're likely to get food poisoning?

KeithMarmel hopes it's a very short amount of time. I hope it's more than a week.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Yup. More than a week, (almost) certainly.

How this works, more or less: if you bought it as pure dripping and kept it in the fridge, it's safe for months & months. If you bought it as pure dripping and didn't keep it in the fridge, it's still safe for months; remember, people used to use fat as a means to preserve meat from one season to the next. Some of us still do. I've laid down pork confit in lard, kept it in the larder (and yup, that is why it's called the larder, from the Old French for a bacon-tub: same root, same process), forgotten about it, eaten it three months later, yum yum.

On the other hand, if you rendered it yourself off a joint of meat and left it in the same pan, it'll have a lot of yummy meaty juices underneath it; if anything's going to go off, it'll be those juices, and they will contaminate the dripping. Scoop the fat off the juices and keep it separate, it'll keep & keep; or mix the two up together and eat 'em quickly, fighting KeithMarmel off the while. One or the other.

Does that help?

[dedbutdrmng.livejournal.com]

Yes. Perfect. It's meat juices under fat so hopefully it'll be fine. Poor KeithMarmel.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

PS - when it goes bad, you will know. Tainted fat stinks most foully.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

This is the fact, which those youngsters who are guided by sell-by dates do not know: when it goes off, you will know...