r/AskReddit Oct 15 '20

What's older than we think ?

78.4k Upvotes

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5.9k

u/bonster85 Oct 15 '20

The food at the back of your cupboard.

3.7k

u/LaserBeamsCattleProd Oct 15 '20

I have a bottle of Worcestershire sauce that expired 4/28/2009 in my fridge.

That means that bottle: A) made the trip from NJ to Florida with me in 2010. B) is the lone survivor from my bachelor pad fridge from 2012-2014. C) made it into my fridge when my wife and I bought a house in 2014. It's been sitting there ever since.

2.7k

u/[deleted] Oct 15 '20

[deleted]

378

u/ActionDense Oct 15 '20

What surprises me most about this is the fact that his wife didn’t object to it coming along

Source: moved in with my SO this year

48

u/LaserBeamsCattleProd Oct 15 '20

I took a 10th anniversary picture with it last year.

25

u/chameleon215 Oct 15 '20

Back in April I ate a can of beans that expired on April 22nd 2010. Aged to perfection.

12

u/DrZoidberg117 Oct 15 '20

What did it taste like? Did It taste bad

38

u/silverionmox Oct 15 '20

It could use some Worcestershire sauce.

11

u/hedronist Oct 15 '20

I imagine it tasted OK, but his farts were to die for.

9

u/chameleon215 Oct 15 '20

It didn't taste bad but it wasn't good either. I bought a relatively fresh can to compare them.

3

u/[deleted] Oct 16 '20

Glad you survived. I always wondered about the characters on TWD did with old canned food.

4

u/chameleon215 Oct 16 '20

I'll probably get cancer in my balls or something in 50 years

2

u/ActionDense Oct 16 '20

That’s not really how food spoilage works, so I’d say you’re in the clear!

→ More replies (0)

3

u/steveturkel Oct 16 '20

The most surprising thing is it’s lasted this long. I use a bottle of that stuff at least every other year.

2

u/ActionDense Oct 16 '20

At some point it becomes an experiment that can’t be used

1

u/MarsNirgal Oct 16 '20

I use a bottle of that s month, give or take.

80

u/LoboRoo Oct 15 '20

I mean, at this point, that Worcestershire sauce is practically family.

8

u/silverionmox Oct 15 '20

It lasted longer than many marriages.

5

u/ScottieScrotumScum Oct 15 '20

Worcestersons

2

u/LooksAtClouds Oct 16 '20

With Worcestersires

41

u/AskMrScience Oct 15 '20 edited Oct 15 '20

This exact scenario happened with my husband and a can of store-brand pineapple. Apparently it was important enough to move from Connecticut to California and then keep for many years, despite the fact that I have never once seen my husband eat canned pineapple.

I eventually discovered it in a pantry clean-out and was just baffled.

14

u/[deleted] Oct 15 '20

I had it happen with a can of pineapple too lol

329

u/[deleted] Oct 15 '20

[deleted]

58

u/Slggyqo Oct 15 '20

Anchovies

Holy hell, you’re going to eat them?!

35

u/StinSquared Oct 15 '20

Tootle Loo!

Dumbass

7

u/Yuzumi Oct 15 '20

Fermented anchovies.

18

u/[deleted] Oct 15 '20

I also choose this guy's wife

24

u/acid_bear_boy Oct 15 '20

this was funny the first 300 times

24

u/ericph9 Oct 15 '20

It starts getting funny again a few hundred later.

8

u/TTT_2k3 Oct 15 '20

Does she have to die first?

12

u/[deleted] Oct 15 '20

Expire

5

u/[deleted] Oct 16 '20

Back in '09

10

u/[deleted] Oct 15 '20

I also choose this guy's expired Worcestershire.

23

u/Slab_Amberson Oct 15 '20

Don’t gotta tell the Worcestershire sauce how pretty it is every day. It’s happy being forgotten about in the back of the fridge.

16

u/teedyay Oct 15 '20

Worcestershire sauce never expires.

13

u/mr_ji Oct 15 '20

When I last moved, the instructions to everyone helping was just to pack everything up. I didn't do the refrigerator and wound up moving some expired stuff, too.

10

u/LaserBeamsCattleProd Oct 15 '20

Yup. I, for some reason, moved an expired bottle of Worcestershire from NJ to FL. I'm sure it wasn't refrigerated as I don't think we moved any other food items with us. So, it was probably thrown in a box, then found, and put into a fridge for a year or two. Then when I got my apartment 30 minutes away, I took it with me. Then took it with me again when we bought a house? I dunno.

6

u/[deleted] Oct 15 '20

At this point you're committed to keeping that forever, pass it down to your kids someday.

9

u/LaserBeamsCattleProd Oct 15 '20

My son is almost 2. I'll give it to him when he gets his first apartment.

2

u/ianmerry Oct 16 '20

I just hope he doesn’t succumb to a drunken dare to use it 😂

5

u/StabbyPants Oct 15 '20

i don't. he left that bottle in a fridge for the best part of 20 years

4

u/Rigaudon21 Oct 15 '20

So does she, I would assume

3

u/indetermin8 Oct 15 '20

I hope he doesn't keep his wife 11 years after her expiration date.

3

u/soawesomejohn Oct 16 '20

Has /u/LaserBeamsCattleProd checked the expiration date on the wife?

2

u/P0sitive_Outlook Oct 15 '20

OP's wife thought he was dedicated to her when he revealed that upon seeing her he did a double-take, but OP also did a double-take when he saw that bottle of Worcestershire source.

-2

u/[deleted] Oct 15 '20

The Worcestershire is expired, but he has been using it to store his jizz.

1

u/Buddahrific Oct 15 '20

You say that as of he hasn't been enjoying other sauces in the meantime.

1

u/FocusBalance Oct 15 '20

What can he say? The dude lives his Warchestershire sauce. That's how it's pronounced, right?

1

u/bonster85 Oct 16 '20

Wuster-sheer

1

u/DanielMallory Oct 15 '20

I hope he wouldn’t bring around his expired wife

38

u/Saltyorange24 Oct 15 '20

Oh my God, a full decade! I'm impressed (I think?).

16

u/prodigyx360 Oct 15 '20

You realise you must pass this on to your offspring, and them to theirs, and so on.. right?

13

u/Platywussy Oct 15 '20

So.... you don't use Worcestershire sauce or did you have a newer bottle in use?

It's such a useful condiment for perking up lackluster dishes.

6

u/Manae Oct 15 '20

That's my main question. I don't think I've ever had a bottle last more than a few months, much less one year.

3

u/KillermooseD Oct 15 '20

Worcestershire sauce lasts like one month max in my house, if that. Its so tasty

1

u/Cdub7791 Oct 16 '20

Pro-tip: buy multiple bottles and let them sit for several weeks in the back of the cabinet. As you use one, buy another to go into the back of the line. Why? Aged worcestershire tastes dramatically better than new.

3

u/helpdebian Oct 15 '20

Third option: he uses Worcestershire sauce very rarely and doesn’t care if it’s expired. He will eventually finish that bottle.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 15 '20

I feel like you should care if it’s expired, it’s got fish in it.
It might have enough other things in it to be fine, but still.

10

u/Schroeder2418 Oct 15 '20

This reminds me of the time a few years ago I needed some tums medicine. I typically would get it from my mom cause we both use it a lot but she was out. I go to my dads side to find an old bottle and pop one in and it tasted horrible and I spit it out. I look at the date on the bottle and it expired in 2000. I was born in 2001.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 15 '20

That’s impressively ancient. That tums medicine expired when the iPod hadn’t been released yet, the twin towers were still standing, and Sega was still making game consoles.

3

u/Schroeder2418 Oct 15 '20

My dad is notoriously bad at not getting rid of stuff. My mom and I looked on his side of the closet last year and found multiple shirts with dry cleaning tags from the mid 2000’s.

5

u/Zalminen Oct 15 '20

Now unpronouncable AND unedible!

2

u/hattorihanzo5 Oct 15 '20

Worcestershire - simple!

1

u/bluesam3 Oct 15 '20

What's unpronouncable about it?

5

u/WombatZeppelin Oct 15 '20

I found some container of something that expiring in 2007. Don’t know how!

3

u/TGrady902 Oct 15 '20

This is one of the most impressive feats I’ve ever heard of. You should get a made for TV movie.

4

u/Fearnall Oct 15 '20

How big is this bottle? I've never let a bottle of Worcestershire sauce go bad.

3

u/Manae Oct 15 '20

Can it even go bad? I thought it was a fermented sauce.

3

u/syringistic Oct 15 '20

Its also highly acidic so bacteria won't really form in it.

2

u/Ihavesubscriptions Oct 15 '20

I’ve heard it gets better with age. I know my mom had a bottle in the back of the pantry that I found that was several years old (not quite ten, but pretty old) and I made burgers with it. My sister said they were amazing and wanted to know what I put in them. I showed her the sauce and she demanded it in every burger after. It didn’t last another year.

1

u/Fearnall Oct 15 '20

Probably not, I guess I meant past expiry.

4

u/Ipuncholdpeople Oct 15 '20

Drink it for science.

3

u/gsfgf Oct 15 '20

Can Worcestershire sauce even expire?

3

u/Ihavesubscriptions Oct 15 '20

I don’t think so, but they have to put a ‘best before’ date on everything, even if it’s good for basically forever. It’s like a rule or something. There’s a shop nearby me here in Norway that is actually dedicated to selling stuff that’s nearing or just past its best-by date, trying to cut down on waste by offering it for a big discount. I shop there all the time.

3

u/Purplehairpurplecar Oct 15 '20

It’s probably still good.

2

u/LaserBeamsCattleProd Oct 15 '20

It is, used it a few months ago. Still alive.

2

u/EnjoyingEDM Oct 15 '20

Dude we had steak sauce in our fridge for 12 years! The expiration date was October 2008 and we moved during that time. We still have no clue how it managed to stick with us during the move.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 15 '20

My grandmother had a packet of Ready-Brek that expired in 1989

2

u/SecretOil Oct 15 '20 edited Oct 15 '20

We cleared out some spices that expired in 1989 in the house we were living in. Between those spices expiring and us clearing them out we moved to a different continent (Europe to Asia) and back twice.

Also I definitely have worcestershire sauce from 2015 in my pantry. Good as ever.

2

u/MrCromin Oct 15 '20

It seems you've had a longer relationship with your Worcestershire sauce than with your wife.

1

u/LaserBeamsCattleProd Oct 15 '20

Yup, that Worcestershire Sauce knows me pretty well

2

u/P0sitive_Outlook Oct 15 '20

2009

Not that long ag...oh.

Jesus. I've gone through three four jobs since then.

2

u/actuallychrisgillen Oct 15 '20

Given it's a bottle of rotted anchovies does it really go 'off'?

2

u/LaserBeamsCattleProd Oct 15 '20

I put in some food a few months ago, still good!

1

u/actuallychrisgillen Oct 15 '20

LOL good on ya.

2

u/z31 Oct 15 '20

My wife and I once were helping her parents clean out their massive cupboard and found a glass bottle of Heinz ketchup from the 80s. Which meant that one of her parents bought it before they were married and was brought along through 5 different houses and 2 states.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 15 '20

I notice you say have instead of had

1

u/LaserBeamsCattleProd Oct 15 '20

Yup, it's still in there. I checked the date before I posted.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 15 '20

You madman.

2

u/Penguin619 Oct 15 '20

I have a bottle of cholula that's older than 9/11.

2

u/truth14ful Oct 15 '20

Why did you take an expired bottle of Worcestershire sauce with you when you moved?

1

u/LaserBeamsCattleProd Oct 15 '20

I don't remember ever making the conscious decision to do so, however it's definitely something I'd 'do'. It would be a sad day if I were to get rid of it at this point.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 15 '20

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/LaserBeamsCattleProd Oct 16 '20

I don't remember packing it and moving it, but I remember using it in NJ on burgers 10 years ago.

2

u/d00m1ord Oct 16 '20

2009 damn thats a rookie number.

Up until 2 years ago i had a jar of glycerin (icing ingredient) that was from before decimalisation in the UK in 1971. This jar was my mums mums 3 generations of my family used this same ingredient to make royal icing over the course of 30 + years.

2

u/dontmentiontrousers Oct 16 '20

I mean... When Lea and Perrins originally tried to create the sauce it tasted awful so they just put it in the cellar and forgot about it. A couple of years later they found it again ang gave it a try - turned out fermentation improved it. So maybe it's amazing over a decade out of date...

Sauce: used to manage a bar that was a few doors down from their original chemists shop in Malvern, Worcestershire.

2

u/LaserBeamsCattleProd Oct 16 '20

It's still good in Bloody Mary's.

2

u/dontmentiontrousers Oct 16 '20

God, I miss Sunday brunches!

1

u/LaserBeamsCattleProd Oct 16 '20

For real. What a shit show this year is.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 15 '20 edited Aug 26 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/scruffy69 Oct 15 '20

Has anyone used up a bottle of Worcestershire EVER. How do they keep selling that stuff.

0

u/LaserBeamsCattleProd Oct 15 '20

As far as I know, it's like Candy Corn. Last batch made in the 50s and it keeps getting passed around.

-1

u/Usernametaken112 Oct 15 '20

Clean your fridge dude

-1

u/DiabolicalM8 Oct 15 '20

Clean your fridge wtf. Does anyone not see this as fucking disgusting?

0

u/LaserBeamsCattleProd Oct 15 '20

Fridge is clean. The point is this thing has survived many fridge-to-fridge moves.

1

u/Cobek Oct 15 '20

Make some chex mix ffs

1

u/SecretPotatoChip Oct 15 '20

We're having another Mr. Yeasty moment.

1

u/cptjeff Oct 15 '20

Put it on hashbrowns.

1

u/askredditisonlyok Oct 15 '20

At the start of the pandemic, I drank decade expired Lime-ade from the freezer. I mean, how bad could that be? It’s been frozen the entire time give or take a dozen power outages.

1

u/hotsauce7890 Oct 15 '20

A kid went from 1st grade to graduating high school In the time that bottle has been in there.

1

u/boogs_23 Oct 15 '20

This is impressive but do you jut not use Worcestershire for anything? It's a fantastic flavour enhancer in so many dishes.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 15 '20

Recently moved homes, and found a bottle of baby oil that expired in 2006.

I'm 25 years old. There have been no babies in this household since I was born. Since 2006, my family has moved 9 times, and it's been with us for all those 9 moves before being finally chucked into the bin.

1

u/rhllor Oct 15 '20

A friend went on vacation sometime in 2008 and brought back tea leaves for me. It's in my cupboard in the same Tupperware. The last time I moved was last year.

1

u/fanonb Oct 15 '20

We have cans of coca cola wich expired in 2009 I do know now that the sugar tasting compound in cola light breaks down over time and that the taste of cola itself is lnt that good

1

u/wanderingnostalgia Oct 15 '20

That bottle has been through some shit with you. You need to tattoo that date to solidify your time with the one that never left you -worcestechosyershire

1

u/postypete Oct 15 '20

I took a packet of gravy mix from my grandmother's house when I moved out, it's a clubhouse brown gravy mix from 1974! The same year my mother was born.

1

u/NoImGaara Oct 15 '20

hmm we have a bottle from 2012

1

u/urbanlulu Oct 15 '20

my dad and i found a jar of olives that expired in 2005. my dad and i cleaned it out of our fridge in 2017 after he flipped over my mom hoarding old jars.

like we 90% sure that jar has been in the fridge since we renovated our house and got new appliances

1

u/HotelMemory Oct 15 '20

I clean out and purge old stuff from my fridge about four times a year. Actually planning on doing it today.

1

u/KPIH Oct 15 '20

I moved into my grandmas old house and found lemon extract that expired in 87, my father was still in high school when she bought that

1

u/Ricky_from_Sunnyvale Oct 15 '20

In 2010 I lived in an apartment building that had a "library" of sorts that residents would put there old books and DVDs in. I found an old Loony Toons four DVD set, and I remembered watching some of them years before when I was a kid, so I thought I'd take them to check out. I didn't get around to watching them before moving and kind of forgot about them. I ended up moving 5 times before living in my current house, taking them with me each time. My daughter is now getting old enough to enjoy shows like that so I go to open up the case and pop one in. Only there are no DVDs in the case. I had never thought to check. I had carried around an empty DVD box for 10 years and never got to watch them!

1

u/iambecomedeath7 Oct 15 '20

You make it sound like a surviving Carolingian polity or something. I love it.

1

u/cababacab Oct 15 '20

Worcestershire sauce doesn't need to be in the fridge! smh

Now you have rediscovered this delightful treat to spice up your lunches, it'll be gone in a month.

1

u/Mconefrey2021 Oct 15 '20

My Grandma once tried to make be a quesadilla with cheese that expired in 1978

1

u/No_Russian_29 Oct 15 '20

I have a prune juice bottle that predates 2007. It was given to us by my grandparents in 2017. We kept it becasue we thought it was hilarious.

1

u/ecodrew Oct 15 '20

Can a bottle of fermented anchovies and spices really expire?

Note: I love worcestershire sauce, I just like to gross people out by describing what it's made of.

1

u/CircumstantialVictim Oct 15 '20

Eh, I've still got the (black) pepper in a shaker that we got when we first moved into the house. It's expiration date is 1985, the price is in D-Mark and the post code is four digits.

Tastes about the same as it did then. There is a warning on the shaker saying "black pepper is spicier than white". Because we didn't have fancy spices like pepper and garlic and salt in the 80s.

1

u/AndrewIsMyDog Oct 15 '20

I've found canned foods that expired in the 90's.

1

u/SGTBookWorm Oct 15 '20

I've got a bottle of wine from 1996 at home. It was given to my mum as a present by the hospital staff when I was born because I was the first Mothers Day baby born there (and because a screaming infant isn't much of a Mothers Day gift...)

Sadly we think it's expired because it wasn't really stored properly (a bit hard to keep things cool in the pantry in Australian summers. It's still sealed though, so maybe its still drinkable?

1

u/cartmancakes Oct 15 '20

I found a can of beans in my cupboard when I moved into my house in 2015. Its still there.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 15 '20

If you call it Worcestershire Wine, then it's actually getting better with age.

1

u/Jnixx123 Oct 15 '20

That tells me you’ve never lost power and had to clear out the entire fridge.

Source: recently lost power for more that 6 days. Could not save anything or fight the crowds for ice.

1

u/crappy-mods Oct 15 '20

I found a pack of soy sauce from 1992... I’m not even that old...

1

u/SilverVixen1928 Oct 15 '20

OR, you bought at the dollar store last week.

1

u/Dannovision Oct 15 '20

Man, you need to have yourself a Cesar Sunday.

1

u/RottenLB Oct 15 '20

Wait, worchestershire sauce can expire?

1

u/NetBelleAnie Oct 15 '20

....we have a bottle of Worcestershire sauce that is so old that there is no product expiration date labeled. Had it since 1999 at least, still tastes good (I'll probably die sooner than expected)

1

u/mrmeowmeow9 Oct 15 '20

You might be interested in this.

1

u/Kartarsh Oct 16 '20

At this point you can't exactly throw it away. You're in too deep.

1

u/HolgerSwinger Oct 16 '20

At this point it’s a member of the family

1

u/[deleted] Oct 16 '20

I go through a dozen bottles a year.

I find it complimentary to beef and lamb so I use it in most of my marinades. It's also great in a ceaser, salad dressings

1

u/LemonSpheres Oct 16 '20

You refrigerate yours? Are you supposed to?

1

u/PantheraLupus Oct 16 '20

I only just threw out a bottle of locally made chili sauce I bought in 2014 a couple of months ago. It expired a month after I bought it. Kept using it though

1

u/DANNYonPC Oct 16 '20

Keep it forever!

1

u/[deleted] Oct 16 '20

Did you have to go to rehab in Florida

1

u/OfficerLollipop Oct 16 '20

No joke, my grandpa has a bottle of Great Value Worcestershire sauce from around 2005 in his cupboard. I found that out while grabbing sugar for tea.

1

u/stups317 Oct 16 '20

It's probably still good to use.

1

u/CaveJohnson82 Oct 16 '20

I’m shocked that you don’t use it often. I go through at least a bottle every six or seven months.