Yes, Spam! The official canned meat of TUAK!
Thanks to Big Brother, I’ve been slowly stocking back up on the wonder meat. And today it all got moved to the sleeping storage loft.
Along with many other canned goods. The exercise helped me sort through what was depleted and what was outdated* and what simply never gets used in my canned food, and there will be some stocking back up at the dollar store in the matter of canned veggies and fruit.
Just finished up with the cans (many trips up and down the ladder) when damned if it didn’t start to rain a bit. I think I’ll still be able to do the flour and the bulk food today, but that did remind me that I’m supposed to be baking bread with my other hand. So we’re taking a lunch-and-baking break from the back-and forth drudgery.
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*Yeah, I take “best by” dates with a hefty dose of salt but I’ve also pushed that practice to the point of bulging cans. I consider the date more a guideline than a rule, but not completely irrelevant. We generally practice stock rotation here at the Secret Lair but things do get pushed inadvertently to the back of the shelf.
Now you need a bunch of shelving in the loft for all your canned goods, etc.
At the emergency food pantry where I volunteer we have official USDA guidelines about what we can give out past the best by date. Assuming the cans are intact and not rusted; low acid foods can be given out 5 years past the best by date and high acid foods can be given out 1 year past the date. I’ve brought home and used stuff we couldn’t give out because of those times and they’ve been just fine – maybe a little bland or mushy.
I’m wondering if it won’t be too hot up in the loft in the summer for canned goods. Cans kept cool can last long after the “best by” date, but if they get too warm, too often, for too long… I wouldn’t trust even that date much. How will you keep them cool?
Will the loft be any hotter than that shed?
That said… I remember that you have a cache somewhere, It really is better not to put all of your eggs in one Lair. I hope you keep 30 days supply of food somewhere outside of the Lair.
And one somewhere inside the Lair that you can get to if you can’t go up and down the ladder.
@coloradohermit — I’d have thought that the high-acid foods would remain viable longer than the low-acid types. Did they give a rationale for that?
Cheers
JerryN – This pure speculation on my part, tempered with experience in canning. They are worried about the acid/vinegar eating through the metal. The only metal I have seen that doesn’t discolor/corrode are the canning lids that are porcelain lined. That’s why if you get tomatoes in porcelain lined cans they taste better – no slight metallic taste.
The loft gets hot in summer but not nearly as hot as the metal-roofed powershed. Also it’s ventilated.
And yeah, I have an extensive off-site food cache. All that Mountain House stuff, for one, and a whole bunch of bulk food last month’s guest gave me.
“JerryN – This pure speculation on my part, tempered with experience in canning. They are worried about the acid/vinegar eating through the metal.”
Judy’s right. The acid will weaken the metal and either leak or bulge and eventually “explode”.
Obviously, the Lair’s loft is stress-rated for one hermit and associated (but minimal) furniture; I doubt it would happen, but it’s surprisingly easy to accumulate a sufficient quantity of “stuff” which, individually, have only slight gravitational attraction, but in the aggregate wind up weighing quite a bit.
Given access issues directly associated with required reversal of the gravitational thing mentioned above, there’s probably little hazard of the loft becoming a ground floor architectural feature, but still….
I’d be curious how you eat all that spam. Do you always pan fry it?
Dean, I most commonly pan fry it with eggs and toast in what I call Spammo Classico. I also cube it, fry it, and cook it into big omelettes with potatoes and onion.
Actually I cube it and mix it with all sorts of things but a quick pass through a skillet first brings out the flavor.