In a message dated 5/24/02 4:01:04 PM, Tom Bridgeland <[log in to unmask] writes: << Theola Walden Baker wrote: > Which brings me to a related point. The "preferred" taste of meat is > largely culturally defined. I have a friend in Ft. Worth who is married to > a man from France. He will not eat cuts fresh from the grocery store. She > further ages their meat in the refrigerator--PHEW!--to the point that most > of us would toss it out as completely rotten. When I cooked in a restaurant in college, the Chef would keep steak long past what we mere cooks thought was safe. It smelled awful. Then we would cook it. Man that stuff was great. Sometimes a package of beef would go beyond what even the chef thought was saleable, then he would let us kitchen staff have it. We ate it and never got sick; it was great. Old pork turns greenish and should NOT be eaten when it gets old. The smell is distinctly sour. Dogs love spoiled pork, so I suppose a human -could- eat it, but I would not want to be the one to try it first... >> The question is, how old is old? Last Sunday I defrosted a large package of country pork ribs. Half I cooked, the rest I left covered with plastic wrap in the fridge until Friday. I smelled them, and they smelled rather "off", what my mother would call "high". They had darkened somewhat, but were certainly not green. I was going to toss them, but decided I'd cook them and see what happened. I washed them thoroughly in cold water, and noticed the flesh had softened. I browned them lightly, seasoned, and then just added water and simmered slowly for around 2 hours. While they were cooking they didn't smell that great, but once they were thoroughly cooked, they smelled fine. The meat was extremely tender and delicious. My husband and I both ate it, enjoyed it, and didn't get sick. Generally I have found pork to be tough and dry, so I don't eat it that often. (I also prefer to eat free-range meats when I can get them, and this was just supermarket pork.) This meat was so tender and flavorful I couldn't believe it. I guess it was "aged to perfection", but I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable doing this as a regular practice. After I ate it, I was very nervous for a whole day, wondering if I was going to get sick from it! Are there any guidelines for aging meats? What are the bacteria at work that accomplish this? Are they different ones for pork, beef, poultry? And I'm assuming thorough cooking destroys them? Maddy Mason Hudson Valley, NY