BOB > wrote:
> Mark Shaw wrote:
> > Last Sunday I bought a couple of pork shoulders for
> > sausage from Costco. I got busy, though, and they stayed
> > on the bottom shelf of my fridge until yesterday (Friday)
> > evening, at which point they were four days beyond the
> > "sell by" date. They were sealed in plastic (I think the
> > name for this kind of packaging is Cry-o- vac).

> The "sell by" date is just that...a sell by date. The meat doesn't
> automatically expire after the sell

> What was the temperature in your refrigerator? Was it contantly below
> 40?F? If so, you will be fine. If the door was opened and closed a lot,
> or left open for a period of time, you might have a problem.

I'm running 38F, and the door doesn't get a whole lot of
use (no teenagers in my house, for example).

I'm assuming I'm fine. I'll go easy on the first batch
of sausage or two just to be sure, though - having had
food poisoning once, I'm not anxious to repeat the
experience to any degree greater than necessary. The
hallucinations are great fun, but the digestive-tract
issues are not....

Thanks for all the opinions.

> My opinion is that it will be safe unless the 'fridge door was open lots
> of times and the nominal temperature wasn't kept below 40?.

I think you mean "above," right?

A final note: I've gotta say I really love my new Porkert
#12. I'd been running my meat through my Kitchenaid
mixer's grinder attachment, and there's just NO comparison.
I went through 13+ pounds of pork in no time flat.

--
Mark Shaw moc TOD liamg TA wahsnm
================================================== ======================
"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new
discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny....'" - Isaac Asimov