Leftovers - How Long?

[NutNut]

You would all have a rough time at my house. I make beans 4 gallons at a time, they last weeks. We make a turkey every week or two, so there is always turkey and beans in the fridge. We don't keep fish, but that is mostly cause storing it in the same fridge as the beans make them taste fishy. Never been sick from food.

Grew up eating game and ham that hung in barn (smoke house). It would mold on the outside, wash the mold off and eat it. Heavy on the salt and smoke, but that kept as long as we ever needed it to. No fridge at all, and talking months not days.

It's all in context, dry aged meat (the best meat on the planet IMO) gets surface mold during the aging process which is just trimmed off before cooking. With ham you are usually worried about Trichinella, Listeria and Staphylococcus, the mold on the outside that may form can be washed off and isn't much of a concern but Staph is salt resistant (min growth starts at 41F) and Listeria can grow as low as 32F (very slowly mind you) and it too is salt tolerant but not as tolerant as Staph, it is freeze resistant but heat kills it. We ingest Listeria in small amounts pretty much daily and our immune systems have built up a resistance, people get sick sometimes but it is rare given how much of it we consume in smaller amounts, has it been an underlying cause in death yes but this only tends to happen in those with severely compromised immune systems. Staff is on our skin, we do ingest it but it is still pretty dangerous. The good news is proper food handling goes a long way there. It is killed with heat (though it's toxin generally isn't) and will not grow if food is kept <40 or >140 with cured meat the concern is growth once sliced. Freezing kills most strains of Trichinella as does heat above 150F. Other meats have other bacteria to worry about but those are a few of the more common (well those an E. coli). People complain about nitrites but nitrites make cured meats.

As for cheese, if it's a semi soft or hard cheese you are fine to cut it off. LK's wife would be confused by Brie lol.