View Full Version : Cleaned out 39 year old spice rack!
Maybe I should have called a HASMET team to do this? hahaha
Oh man......sometimes, I just have things soooo long that they blend into the woodwork and I don't really notice them.
This spice rack had its own bottles and most of them were still filled with various herbs. Some had labels and some were totally unidentifiable!
I poured all the stuff into my compost bucket. I hope it doesn't kill anything in the compost pile. hahaha
Does that ever happen to you? ..........you have something totally unused and stupid that is in total sight, but you just ignore it for decades?
The label on the bottom of the wooden rack says "Made in Japan". I hadn't seen that for awhile! Everything used to be from Japan, until it started all being from China.
Well.........that's done! :cool:
Gardenarian
2-3-14, 6:12pm
Wow, what a challenge! Ours is only 10 years (a spice drawer) but it is a mess!
I think I might just clean it up this week.
Thanks for the inspiration! :)
Not decades, but months. My problem is wine.
I know that it is beneficial in particular amounts, especially for old babes like me. So, every once in a while, I buy a bottle, have a glass and completely forget about the rest of it. Per bottle, I am frugal, but no matter how inexpensive the wine, or even if it is a gift, the effective price per glass is stunning. So, I thought I would try one of the boxed ones. It was vile and I ended up not even finishing the first little glass before it went down the drain.
I do not buy many spices, and when I do I buy just a bit from the health food store or Hispanic market, so they get used up before I can forget about them. I use very little granulated sugar, so I bought one a few months ago, forgetting that I already had one in the pantry, and I still have not used any of it. Good thing it lasts forever, and if I ever get an urge to make cookies for the neighborhood I am good to go.
I bet your compost smells divine!
I bet your compost smells divine!
.....or stands up and runs, screaming. :laff:
Sheesh...what else do you have in there?
Its just that some of these spices/herbs no longer smelled very good.
onlinemoniker
2-3-14, 9:44pm
I have a bottle of cumin that's from the 70's. It was in my mother's spice cabinet. I don't have the heart to throw it out. Otherwise, I only buy spices I use and turn them over pretty quickly. Don't have a spice "rack" per se. Just a cabinet that is well stocked and used.
I love that you are hanging on to your mother's cumin.
My XMiL never cared about cooking. One of XW's and my jobs when we visited her was to go through the pantry and 'fridge and clean them out. Spice containers from groceries which had gone out of business years ago. Foods unrecognizable in their current form. We referred to it as "carbon dating".
My XMiL never cared about cooking. One of XW's and my jobs when we visited her was to go through the pantry and 'fridge and clean them out. Spice containers from groceries which had gone out of business years ago. Foods unrecognizable in their current form. We referred to it as "carbon dating".
LOL Steve!
This reminds me of many years ago when I was helping a friend move. He had lived in his apartment for 3 years at the time. I was pulling stuff out of the fridge/freezer and found several things with expiration dates from more than 3 years earlier, so apparently he had moved expired food into the apartment and it sat in the fridge the entire time he lived there.
YUK! We all have way too much stuff and then it all gets lost in the shuffle. And I suppose it means we have too much to eat, if we can push it to the back of the fridge and never look at it again.......One of those "First World problems".
gimmethesimplelife
2-4-14, 1:07pm
My Mom's ex boyfriend walked out on her in 2000 and left a lot of his junk behind. My mother finally has gotten around to getting rid of his junk including some spices in large containers he left behind. Mom threw all the spices out and thought to recycle the plastic containers and in one, she found $50 - the ex boyfriend used to stash money around the house like that. That made her day! Rob
Teacher Terry
2-4-14, 1:47pm
Too funny!
rodeosweetheart
2-4-14, 8:54pm
Non spice related, but I recently went to visit my mom and was offered the same towel that I took to college, 41 years ago.
Oh gosh, what a great thread. Old spices...they came home to haunt me when I made *ginger bread* last week for a pot luck. It didn't taste much like ginger bread. The cake was good but tasted more like a molasses and honey cake than gingerbread. Problem was the ginger had passed its ginger-y prime and had no taste. Who knew? Spices lose their pizzazz after a few years..or 5-10. Bummer.
My Mom's ex boyfriend walked out on her in 2000 and left a lot of his junk behind. My mother finally has gotten around to getting rid of his junk
The same XMiL still had her dead husband's belongings (including things like his wallet and pipe tobacco) intact, just as they were when he died 14 years earlier. I'll be charitable and suggest she was a "Depression baby".
Okay.........this isn't about spices, but similar..........and gross. Quite a few years ago, my husband made some pumpkin bread for company we were having. I used to keep my whole wheat flour in a gallon jar on a shelf. That was before I knew that it can get bad fairly easily if not refrigerated/frozen. When we were eating the pumpkin bread, it had a strange mucoidal/viscosity to it. Anyhow......later on I noticed that the jar of flour had darker streaks in it, but I thought it was the bran separating out or something. Well, when I looked closer...........it was moving!!! AAACCCCCHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I've never stored whole wheat like that again.
I'm still gagging.
I have gone through my spice racks to clean up old items but needed a push to start using up all the food stored in jars that I dried in 2010 and 2011. Thanks for the push.
I now keep all my spices/herbs in jars/tins in a special cabinet over the stove. I know.....you're not supposed to subject them to heat, but its just such a great out-of-the-way place to store them. I write the date that I buy them on them and check through them every few years. I also tend to dump the amount I need in my hand before I put it in a recipe.........just to make sure nothing's moving. :)
And don't forget to recycle all those jars/cans if you get rid of the spices in them.
I do keep some herbs in the fridge, and I keep poppy seed and whole nutmeg in the freezer.
Blackdog Lin
2-5-14, 8:58pm
These are fun stories - sure am enjoying them. :)
In 2008/09 I started putting up some "long-term storage" foodstuffs. Did a great job with the spices (opening up any jar of them today, they still smell and taste like fresh-bought). But I didn't do such a good job with considering HOW MUCH of each spice we use in a year.
I started getting the spices out last year for use, before they got any older. Garlic powder - gone. Ground black pepper - almost gone. Peppercorns - almost gone. Chili powder - almost gone. Basil and oregano - will be used up by 2015 (that stuff is LIGHTWEIGHT and goes a long ways). Cumin - well, I love the stuff, so I put up more than I should have. 2018 is a reasonable guess. Ginger - about the same as the cumin. They will at least get used eventually. Sage - do you need some? Based on how lightweight it is, and how much I put up and how seldom it gets used, the household is covered until about 2024 I figure. And as for cinnamon and cocoa (since I almost never do sweets), we have enough to last through 2044 or the apocalypse, whichever comes first.
My son will no doubt be posting on some future variety of social media a comical lament on his late mother's spice jars, put away in the closet.....
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