Old Vacuum sealed cheese?
Not a cheese whiz, running low on supplies and fixing a spaghetti dinner tonight, is the below 2 year old Asiago still edible? Been in the fridge all this time. Rind look a little suspect?


Apr 30th, 2020 2:07 pm
Apr 30th, 2020 3:26 pm
Apr 30th, 2020 3:47 pm
Apr 30th, 2020 3:56 pm
Apr 30th, 2020 6:42 pm
Apr 30th, 2020 7:20 pm
Apr 30th, 2020 7:22 pm
LolEastGTARedFlagger wrote: ↑ I once found cheap mozzarella still in the vacuum sealed plastic, hidden in the back of the fridge, and it was maybe 1 year past its best-before date. No discoloration/mold but it obviously hardened. When I opened it, the smell and taste were almost exactly like provolone! Was delicious on pizza and cheesesteak sandwiches!
Apr 30th, 2020 7:43 pm
Apr 30th, 2020 7:59 pm
Not only has mold but it's been deliberately inoculated. You can even buy mold cultures to make cheese (have a couple in my fridge but haven't used them due to no place to ripen). Camembert and Brie for example. Lots of others. However, those are specific cultures that are safe if not merely benign for human consumption.jackrabbit000 wrote: ↑ I don't eat it but blue cheese has mold and you can eat it.
May 1st, 2020 1:35 pm
May 1st, 2020 1:54 pm
It's funny but who in their right mind ever thought to take something like moldy bread and "inoculate cheese" with it. Is this crazy mad scientist kind of stuff....and this was before we had these scientific test to determine what will or will not kill you.thriftshopper wrote: ↑ Not only has mold but it's been deliberately inoculated. You can even buy mold cultures to make cheese (have a couple in my fridge but haven't used them due to no place to ripen). Camembert and Brie for example. Lots of others. However, those are specific cultures that are safe if not merely benign for human consumption.
May 1st, 2020 2:33 pm
Probably trial and error of laymen through the centuries, informal unlike Alexander Fleming, and noticed that the blue safe-to-eat stuff protected the cheese against other nasty stuff. Lots of foods have to be cooked, cured or prepared in certain unusual or unexpected ways so they're not toxic (as in "how many people died before they figured that out?"). Can't name any off-hand.
Glad you were open minded about eating it. Oil probably due to aging. It oozes out.
Lots of scare-dy cats who think the stuff goes bad. Lots of really old, aged cheese out there, that were aged w/o refrigeration or vacuum packaging. I remember the kids of my wife's friend asking their dad " will we die if we eat (barely post-dated stuff)?" I'd like to say to them, "that post-dated stuff will taste mighty good when you're hungry and there's nothing else to eat".Everywhere I looked even down to the specific type of cheese suggests no longer than 12 months unopened sealed etc.
Could be but cheese is aged in naturally cold, unrefrigerated cellars too. Wish I had one with space so I could experiment with cheese making (more than I already do).May help that I do keep the fridge quite cold to begin with.