More on Food Storage

   

A correspondent told me that she once threw out all of her miscellaneous containers – Cool Whip, butter tubs, everything she had. Then she purchased a set of green food storage containers. However, because they were all green and looked the same neither she nor her husband had visual memory of what they put in them – in other words, when they used the Cool Whip container that was so old that only the “p” remained in the name they knew it had leftover liver, but a green container is a green container. Plus, having all containers the same color lacked the excitement of wondering, “Now what’s in the Smart Balance container? What’s in the Land O’ Lakes container?” A green container is a green container. 

There was also an unforeseen problem with the green containers. When the lids were opened and the food was inspected the food all looked green; what was green because of the hue of the container and what was green because…well…because it was spoiled? Debates between my correspondent and her husband ensued, arguments about who was going to remove the food to inspect it, questions about whose day it was to taste the suspect food in order to verify whether it was safe to eat. Tension in the marriage began to rise. They have gone back to reusing butter tub containers, they say it makes life more interesting and it has reduced tension in their marriage.

This same correspondent told me about her friend’s husband who, being unable to correctly identify the substance in a butter tub container decided to eat it – after all it looked good. Do not eat what you are not certain about, if you do not recall eating it with your spouse do not assume what you are looking at are leftovers. It was moist dog food. This is a good argument for dry dog food, it is less likely to be mistaken for human food.

This reminds me of an afternoon some years ago when we lived on Beach Road. I arrived home from work before Vickie and I was quite hungry. I saw summer sausage on the kitchen countertop and sliced it and ate it with saltines and mustard – it was quite good. When Vickie arrived home and asked me where the summer sausage was I told her that I ate it.

“Didn’t you see the teeth marks on it?” she asked.

“No,” I replied, “why?”

“It rolled on the floor this morning and the dogs got it, I left it on the countertop rather than throwing it away so I could give them more later. Didn’t you wonder why I left it out of the refrigerator? Surely there was dog fur on it?”

Well…when you are hungry you are hungry and I guess you don’t always think straight. The only side effect of my eating the sausage was that for the next couple of weeks I’d bark occasionally.