"Mushroom" pate [Matthew's Journal]

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Following a discussion on #chiark...

[Poll #1454504]

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There are 30 comments on this entry. (Reply.)

I would only cut a bit of mould off cheese. If it was extensively mouldy, I'd bin it.

Likewise.

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Yes, this, although my standards for "extensively mouldy" differ from day to day (not merely according to desperateness). Also, if the same pack of cheese develops mould repeatedly, I'll eventually get bored of removing the mould and just bin it.

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I have an abhorrence of mould after a particular experience I don't care to recollect. If cheese has gone mouldy in a perfectly good plastic box, I will bin the box unopened to not have to experience the mould, retch at the slight smell and potentially do more than retch.

Mouldy cheese - I did when I ate cheese :-).

Other half has banned me from doing this (hence "Other")

As he knows a lot more about moulds than I do I'm doing as I'm told- for once.

I might cut the mould off the paté depending on the ingredients, but for liver patés I am careful. I have spent quite a few hours in my life shaving mould off blocks of parmesan.

Hehe,

jupiter_jones (who's doing a PhD in microbiology) would tell me off for the first one.

I've never had (meat based) pate gone mouldy, because it'll go off before it becomes mouldy and will be binned accordingly.

OOI, how do you decide pate has gone off? smell? appearance? attempting to take over the world?

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The smell of rotten meat gives it away. With stuff like pate it can be a bit tricky because there are strong flavours involved but I know when stuff has gone off.

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One of the reasons I don't buy much cheese is that I'll eat half of it then forget about it in the back of the fridge until it's more mould than cheese, so cutting off the mould doesn't really make any difference.

OTOH, if I have pate, it rarely lasts long enough to make it back into the fridge. If, for some terrible reason (maybe I'd been run over by a bus and been hospitalised for a month or so), it managed to grow mould, it would be too far gone to recover.

I'm pretty allergic to mould. I would worry a great deal about accidentally ingesting enough to asphyxiate me.

Other - if there's only a small amount of mould I'll cut it off. But if the same cheese develops a second dose of mould before being finished, I'll throw it out.

I can't risk a penicillin reaction, so if the cheese is moldy, I toss it.

It's almost unheard of for cheese to survive long enough to go mouldy after I buy it. OM NOM NOM NOM CHEESE.

This give me an idea for a hypothetical future party. A cheeeeese party, oh yeah.

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I am made of meat, not cheese. Therefore I am more afraid of mould that eats meat than mould that eats cheese.

There is a difference, of course, between "No - I just eat the mould", and "No - I throw the cheese away".

I'll cut it off something like cheddar, but most other cheeses I think I'd bin.

This is more or less my position. Though I don't really count brie re-growing its skin as going mouldy. Mouldy soft cheese like philedelphia goes in the bin without a second thought.

Pate oxidises which looks unpleasant, and given the very short use-by dates and once-opened times they put on it I'm very cautious about it.

Sometimes I find a bit of mould growing on the surface of an open jar of jam, and I know it's OK to just take the surface layer off and throw it away and eat the perfectly good jam underneath. Whether I'll actually do it or not depends a lot on how good my digestion has been lately, what mood I'm in, and whether anyone else is watching :)

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Yeah I was thinking hard cheeses. I've NEVER got as far as a mouldy soft cheese though ever.

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I'm happy that it's safe to eat the remaining cheese when mould has been cut back. On the other hand, a cheese that's got into that state won't taste right.

I tend to eat small quantities (300g/month or so) or cheese I really like, and have put a bit of effort into obtaining. But nice cheese that's started going hard and/or mouldy no longer tastes nicer than stuff that's easily obtained, so why keep eating it rather than buying a lump of Canadian Extra-Mature Cheddar or similar?

Well if you have kids to give a packed lunch to, or live nowhere near shops that are open (and have nothing else in), and you didn't go shopping earlier cos something else kicked off or you were too busy, then you might rather need to use it if it isn't totally off! (Er...this gives a good idea of my lack of home management skills doesn't it, he he?)

It works all right if you grate it to put on the pasta or something too. I grant you it tastes less good though when eaten raw anyway.

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Then again, if your household is consuming that much cheese, how does it have time to go mouldy?

I'll keep a tightly-wrapped lump of cheese in the 'fridge for three or four weeks without any trouble; it sounds like you get through a couple of kilos in that time?

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Yeah, as I said lower down, hardly ever happens. But it has in nearly 2 decades happened enough in the way I just described, even so ;)

Most often when it's got lost in the back, or we've gone away...and then we've run out of every other sandwich filling or protein-choice at dinner time but the one thing there is is...some rather aged cheese :)

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There's a list somewhere of when it's OK to eat the mouldy stuff -- pate's a definite no-no because the high moisture content means that the mycotoxins can permeate the entire thing, it can also harbour one of the more dangerous things, is it botulism? Anyway, don't. I've never been as ill as I was after some dodgy pate.

Bread also -- don't cut off the mouldy bit and eat the rest, as fine filaments of fungus have usually invaded from the mould site into the rest of the bread -- invisible, or at any rate indistinguishable from the bread.

Which is not to say that a robust adult with a stomach suitably brutalised by years of ale and iffy crumpets can't eat mould and be fine. Blork.

http://www.food.gov.uk/multimedia/pdfs/naturaltoxins.pdf

ITYM listeria.

Cheese like cheddar is a) dry, b) salty, c) mostly fat. So that's not terribly good as a growth medium. Cottage cheese is a different story.

Pate is a) damp, b) full of meat. It's not a million miles away from the nutrient broth used by microbiologists to grow cultures. So that's really an eat-within-two-days-of-opening job, if not less.

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Cheese very very rarely lasts long enough in our house for the question to be relevant, but if necessary we do cut mould off cheese and bread and then eat the rest unless it tastes icky. (Actually bread rarely lasts long enough either; and my special bread only goes mouldy when it's too far gone in all respects).

Pate should usually be eaten within about 48 hours (or a few days for the less fussy/worried) anyway so if it's gone mouldy IMO it risks being a health hazard (not necessarily from the mould) so it'd be a gonner.

Mmmm ...cheese.

I just like saying 'mushroom pate'!

I used to cut mould of cheese.

Never known (veg friendly) pate to go mouldy, so haven't really thought about the second. Guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

October