Past its sell by date

Food by Lois

I  get very impatient with people who do not use the common sense when buying food, or even finding food in their fridges and cupboards and think because it is past its sell by date it is poisonous, toxic and generally evil and should be cast into the bin. Obviously it is important with food, especially meat and fish and products made with raw eggs to be careful; there have been some awful cases of food poisoning… but I’m sure no-one was made ill by eating a slice of bread that was past its sell by date, or a piece of cheese. It’s down to common sense.

So… anyway… I was cleaning the freezer and I came across a mysterious bag and when I opened it, there were some frozen buns, all in their little bun cases. In the same drawer was a square object which turned out to be a cake. I have absolutely no recollection of having made these, except it must have been a long time ago… in fact I couldn’t even remember what flavour they were. They looked nice, a dark golden brown with a slightly sticky top. Gingerbread maybe? But no ginger.  Carrot cake? It had walnuts and dried fruit in as carrot cake sometimes does, but there was a very obvious absence of carrot. It tasted nice, and even nicer with a cup of coffee. It was a little dry, so maybe some nice frosting and a sprinkle of walnuts will improve it.

Sometime later it occurred to me that this cake was made from Herman, the friendship cake starter. If you haven’t come across this, it is a cake made from a yeasted ‘starter’ which grows until you can divide it and use some to make cakes and some to keep to grow again. If you have too much of Herman you can give part of him away to friends so they can start their own Herman. We kept our Herman going for quite a while, but there are only so many cakes you can eat and as we as a family don’t eat masses of cake, we soon became a little overwhelmed which was why I ended up freezing some buns and a cake. Wondering when this might have been, I’m thinking it was maybe two or even three years ago before the children had gone to Uni… I’m guessing by some people’s standards Herman is well past his sell by date… I don’t care, he’s fine!

http://www.hermanthegermanfriendshipcake.com/

9 Comments

  2. A Bryant
    Reply

    With bread, when the green mould starts to appear, its time to dump,
    Supermarket coleslaw has a dead give-away. it becomes very vinegary and acidic!
    Green and blacks chocolate is still good a month after it’s sell by date if its kept in a fridge (work had two cases of it but after discovering its age, it lasted only a few days before it was all eaten!)

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    1. david lewis
      Reply

      I”ve never heard of Herman in Canada but in the old westerns it was called sour dough and the cowboys carried it in their saddle bags to be able to make more bread when they had the chance. Must be similar. -31degrees C in Sault Ste Marie today. Have to plant the snow peas and iceberg lettuce.BRRRRRRRRR!

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