So just about everybody I know has a bottle of Ketchup (or Catsup if you're weird) in their homes. If it's not open it is definitely in the cabinet or in the pantry or someplace in the home similar to that. If it's an open bottle whoa boy, now we got ourselves a problem. Some people upon opening the bottle of the red dipping sauce will refrigerate the remaining supply. I do not. After it's open it goes right back into the cabinet. I have been over people's houses having dinner and asked if they had any ketchup and they go to get it and low and behold it's in the goddamn icebox. A nice hot piece of meatloaf and now I gotta dip it into cold ketchup. WTF? I don't want cold ketchup I want room temperature ketchup! Is it supposed to be refrigerated? No where on the bottle does it say "Refrigerate after opening" like most products say. But today I opened a new bottle of ketchup (Heinz) and on the label it says "convenient fridge shaped bottle". Well do I have to put it in the fridge or not? This is going to keep me up at night. I don't want to be eating rancid ketchup (I haven't had a problem in the past, at least I don't believe I have) but I don't want cold ketchup either. What do I do? I investigated, that's what I did, here's what I found out.
According to the Department of Food Science at the Cornell Cooperative Extension in New York ketchup should be refrigerated after being opened. Despite the acidic ingredients in ketchup it is not sufficiently acidic to kill bacteria and microorganisms, including mold, that may be introduced to the containers after opening. Refrigeration does not kill bacteria and microorganisms either, but does slow the growth. Refrigerated, ketchup should keep for up to 6 months. One of the other things I found out during this investigation is that even peanut frigging' butter is supposed to be put in the fridge after it's opened. I don't do that either. Shit how did I live this long? There is one loop hole. If the bottle is open and not refrigerated it will apparently keep for up to a month. Most restaurants, who by the way are not required to refrigerate their ketchup bottle after they open them by the board of health usually go through a bottle of ketchup within a week. I know what a bad bottle of ketchup looks like and smells like. All you have to have happen is one bottle to pop and overflow nasty vinegar smelling rotten ketchup on you to know if the ketchup is good or not. Guess I'll just keep taking my chances.
Fuck bacteria.
6 comments:
Hey Cerpts I decided to heed your thoughts and all of my posts will be in red from now on so you know which ones are mine and can skip over unless youre really bored out of your skull. As for cheeks I don't know what color he will use but it won't be red. Hint hint mo fo.
I assure you I'm always bored (at least here at work when I go online) so I read every last word you've written. And knowing Cheeks he will write the exact same post but it will be in blue. (Private joke Har-har-HARDY-har-har! And a burn on Cheeks!)
But back to ketchup (and yes, those who say or write "catsup" are weird). As a captive of the restaurant industry for 15 years, I can give you the REAL lowdown on ketchup. Yes, those bottles of ketchup that are open and on the tables are never refrigerated. And yes, they go through the bottles very quickly (much quicker than I week, I can tell you). HOWEVER. . .as Cheeks will attest to, restaurants do that swell little thing called "condensing". That is, when the level of the ketchup in the bottle goes down to the pickle on the label (natch we're talking Heinz here), it is time to take them off the table and condense i.e. combine all the partial bottle of ketchup into a new bottle. Usually the empty bottles are run through the dishwasher and the remaining ketchup is dumped in a "ketchup dispenser" of some sort. Then the clean bottle is filled to the top and put back out on the table. Great idea, right?
Well, actually no. Because the ketchup that sits in the "ketchup dispenser" also sat out at room temperature. Also the rule of thumb was a bottle of ketchup should only be condensed once. However, how the hell does anyone know how old all that ketchup in the dispenser is since they are constantly dumped in there and combined with whatever sad mess has been sitting there since Pound Puppies were very popular.
The best way to know if your ketchup is too old to use is when the bottle explodes upward like Old Faithful. This has happened. I've seen it fairly often when I worked in restaurants and it's a treat, let me tell you. Because ketchup has a major ingredient of vinegar, that vinegar ferments (a la wine) and the gaseous pressure (HI CHEEKS!) builds up and blows the cap right off it.
Of course, in my humble abode I devour so much ketchup I'd never have to worry about it sitting around long enough to go bad. And while I keep my ketchup in the fridge, I don't really see a problem with keeping it out -- especially if you go through it even a fraction of the frequency as yours truly.
And as for peanut butter, mine's in the goddamm cupboard and NOT in the fridge! As far as I know, only that "all-natural" peanut butter -- you know, the one that the oil separate outta and you have to keep stirring up -- has to go in the fridge. While it IS true that the peanut oil in the peanut butter CAN go rancid after a good long while, the peanut butter in my cupboard has NEVER done that. Peanut butter in the fridge would be too hard to spread, wouldn't it?!?!?!? You might pierce the toast!!!!
I can't use a color Russ it won't let me the color I have to use if whatever default color you chose for on the layout of the blog. Looks like for some reason you have the old blogger layout editor version and I have the new (and lesser mo' better of the two in my opinion) version that doesn't allow me to pick a color for my post. Not even blue!
I know all about exploding catsup bottles they suck. I also know all about condensing the ketchup. I used both the "c" version and the "k" version didja notice? Why do I get a mention in the gaseous pressure part? That ain't right.
For the record; my ketchup is in the cabinet right next to the peanut butter.
My mustard, however is in the fridge.
You big dumb stupid doofus!!! You can make the color of the letters anything you want them to be WHILE YOU'RE WRITING THEM. When you're writing a new post (after you click the new post button) and you're typing in whatever drivel you're typing . . . up above where you're writing there's a little "b" which make bold type and there's an "i" which makes italics and there's a "T" with a block of purdy colors which MAKES THE GODDAMN TYPE ANY COLOR YOU WANT IT. You can make each word a different color if you want. You can make each goddamn LETTER a different color if you want. It has nothing whatever to do with whatever settings the post has. You big dumb rookie computer doofus!!!!! How long have I known you?!?!?!? And why do I admit knowing you?!?!?!?!? You big pranny!!!
That little thing with all the colors isn't there for me I downloaded a different blogger dashboard and it sucks cause it doesn't have that stuff. Now who's the big dumb doofus? Well, I guess that still makes the doofus but what I'm trying to tell ya's all is that I cannot change the color of my blog posts. I can change it on the dharma blog either.
You are without doubt a doofus then.
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