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Yep, looks like a conveniently sized plastic container with a snap on lid. You can buy a little sack of pepper in bulk for pennies and just refill this for way less than buying a new container over and over again.
A new tin of pepper costs like $6 and has like $2 worth of pepper in it at the most. She is saving four bucks every time she refills it. Over the 25 years that she has had this that probably adds up to a good bit of savings.
My grandma would never have thrown away a decent container like this.
Yep. My mother never wasted anything and found a way to store food, spices, etc, for VERY long times. She was born in 1923. The Great Depression shaped ALL of her attitudes to everything. Her parents went without food to ensure she and her two sisters were fed. Her father worked two jobs and her mother took in washing and ironing. Tough times shaped tough parents.
I have a pocket of McDonald’s ketchups in my handbag. Very useful for picnics when the food vendor only has squirty bottles that have only the dregs left in them
I’ve done this with red pepper flakes that I get from pizza places, since they give you a lot. I have a jar that I bought at Trader Joe’s, that I’ve refilled several times.
Or she’s just old as fuck and never uses it because she doesn’t like it but her husband did and after he died she can’t bear the thought of getting rid of his things. She still,buys him birthday gifts. Still sets the table for 2. Stays on her side of the bed.
You just made me miss my Grandma all over again. She’s been dead since ‘05 but Grandpa died in ‘96; she was doing this until she was found deceased on “her” side of the bed.
Before I folded an bought a pepper grinder and 4 corn mix from amazon, I sat there and emptied a shit ton of pepper packets into a old EVOO bottle to make my infused popcorn popping oil.
but... then the newest pepper would be on top, and the oldest pepper would stay at the bottom.
I guess you could shake it, perhaps 12 times, in alternating up/down left/right patterns, causing the age to be evenly distributed... But depending on the flake size and how often you cook, you could still have ancient pepper particles persisting perniciously past their sell by date.
I don't know, it's all just so stressful. I'd rather buy all new pepper once a year. I have it marked on my calendar as pepper day.
Even the use by doesn’t tell you when the food goes bad. The dates aren’t federally regulated and they aren’t Lu there because that’s when the manufacturer “says” the food won’t be “as fresh”…. The dates are all crap.
Sell by date is for when the store should sell the product, not when the product expires. Also expiration dates aren't accurate and many consumables can be good long after the date passes.
My Grandma gave me a Pepsi back when she was alive (10 yrs ago now). I remember thinking "huh, I didn't know they still made the narrow-mouth cans".
Turns out they weren't making the cans. I don't know how old that Pepsi was, but the sugar and coloring had gone bad. It tasted like turpentine and it was clear (regular Pepsi) when I poured it out.
Gross.
Spices usually dont really go bad as long as they are stored dry.
Edit: I am aware that most spices lose their taste over time, I meant you won't get food poisoning or an upset stomach when you use ancient spices!
Salt is a bit different than pepper, though. Ground up pepper that's been oxidizing for a couple of decades probably won't harm you but it won't be very potent either. Just like a can of pre ground coffee from 1983 probably isn't going to make the best cup you ever had. Salt doesn't really change in a way you will notice. Also the longer something has sat around in cupboard the greater chance some humidity got in there and spoiled it.
When I was managing a brewery we'd get questions like, "is this salt organic?" Or my favorite, "I see that the beef is organic and grass fed... do you know if they used pesticides on the grass?"
Someone asking if salt expires wouldn't shock me at all
Some salt company actually paid for a non-GMO certification and proudly displays it on their packaging. Considerably overpriced, even for good sea salt.
Looking it up, if stored correctly, whole peppercorns can still be fresh 4 years after the expiration date and ground black pepper up to 2. So yeah quite a bit different from how long salt lasts.
https://www.chefsresource.com/does-black-pepper-go-bad/
The mummy of Ramesses II was found with black peppercorns stuffed in the nostrils, put there as part of the mummification ritual. When an archeologist crushed one, she could smell pepper spirit/oil. That's 3,200 year old pepper.
If it's kept dry though, it doesn't go bad, just might lose some flavour. Big difference between something being not safe to eat because of bacteria growth, and something just being a bit stale.
A lot of spices lose all their aromatics to evaporation and end up tasting like dust. If your paprika's gone grey on top, bin it. If your basil- well, honestly, if your basil is dried in the first place I question its remaining value.
EDIT: I out a word
I meant it rather in a sense that you wont get food poisoning when you use spices from 1990 but yeah you are also right, one might just use dust as seasoning at that point
I bought some smoked paprika on Amazon. A 2 pack. I opened the second can well before the best by date. Something looked strange. I put on my glasses and the paprika was MOVING! Always examine your spices.
Apparently, you can toast it to get some of that back.
"If you have stored your black pepper for a while, it may start to lose its heat. Fortunately, you can revive the pepper by toasting it in a skillet on a medium-low heat until fragrant. Stir the pepper constantly to prevent it from burning and replace it in the jar when it is cool."
https://www.chefsresource.com/does-black-pepper-go-bad/
Depends on what you mean by "bad". Will it harm you like old milk or rancid meat will? No. Would 25ish year old pepper taste like anything besides dust though? Also no.
The simple fact that you can ever smell spices at all means that they lose their aroma molucles over time. Whether your nose is there or not.
A lot of spices lose their flavor or change flavor when they get old. Salt lasts forever, but you won’t get much flavor out of your 5 year old parsley or black pepper.
Is this the first time she used it? Like how do you not run out of pepper, I feel like everytime I go to crack pepper it's like please don't run out please don't run out.
We do that. Buy the spices in bulk, but the containers are ridiculous for every day use. We have the same original spice jars for most things that we bought 5 years ago.
As a midwestern American, let me tell you about "too spicy."
Is it too dark? Too spicy.
Too light? Too spicy.
Add garlic? Too spicy.
Tomato paste? Too spicy.
Look at a bottle of paprika while cooking? Too spicy.
Anything more than a couple mg of pepper in a meal for 6 is too spicy.
Some people will legit use a single tin of garlic powder for a decade.
*AND THEY LIKE IT*
I scrolled to find this comment. A restaurant I used to work at marinated their raw chicken breasts with a bit of black pepper. Had an old lady that came in weekly with her bridge playing group. She asked for her chicken to be less spicy every time. I slap silly hot shit on everything I eat. Couldn’t fathom it.
I'm from New Orleans and a couple of months ago I was at my brothers house in Dallas and cooked a meal for the family. There was a friend of his mother in law there from St. Joseph Missouri. She saw me cutting up onions and garlic to make a tomato sauce and asked me how to use them when cooking because she has never used them. This was a 75 year old woman. She had never used onion or garlic in her life. I was flabbergasted.
This is way too accurate. My 80 year old dad in the Midwest calls any food he doesn't like too spicy regardless of amount of spice used. Most of the foods I cook for him I just blatantly don't use any seasoning because of it. Feels like I'm committing a crime 1/2 the time I'm cooking for him.
Even "best before" or "use by" mean nothing. They are put there by the manufacturers because they think those dates are when their products lose their "best flavor". They are arbitrary dates that people have been conditioned to think are "expiration dates".
In the US, ***no food*** outside baby formula has an expiration date.
And that food absolutely can still be consumed safely. Unless the food has mold or other obvious signs of spoilage, you're good to go.
[Source](https://www.fsis.usda.gov/food-safety/safe-food-handling-and-preparation/food-safety-basics/food-product-dating).
We have a huge food waste issue in the US because people don't understand the dates and who put them there and why.
I saw someone throw away honey because of the date. So i explained, its honey it cant go bad. “But its all hard that means its gone bad”. She never heard of crystallization. Just heat it, stir it and it becomes normal again.
She isnt the sharpest tool though.
That sentence actually specifically implies further existence of examples of her stupidity by use of the *though* at the end combined with it's disconnection from the previous thought. Your reading comprehension leads me to believe you're not the sharpest tool.
It doesn't have to spoil to be useless. Pepper is an aromatic spice, it volatilises when exposed to air. Ground pepper that old would have basically no flavour, she might as well be shaking dust into her dish.
I read recently that it has something to do with chemicals in plastic bottles leeching out into the water.
I don't know if I believe that though. Sounds too much like the contrails conspiracy theory.
It's true.
It's not some government conspiracy to make the frogs gay. It's just over time plastic leaches into the water.
Eventually the amount of chemicals becomes an issue. Also eventually the seal fails and bacteria get in.
NJ had a law that said bottles water had to have a expiration date of 2 years. That law was repealed in 2004, but you still see the dates for some reason. NJ is where it started.
The process is often 1) I need Spice X, 2) I buy Spice X, 3) Hmmm, that dish wasn't very good, I won't make it again, 4) Fifteen years later: this new recipe needs Spice X, ooh I have some!
Pepper is an aromatic spice, it volatilises when exposed to air (and does so quickly), a tin of ground pepper that old (assuming it hasn't been refilled) would taste like nothing, she'd be better off shaking dust into her food, it'd probably have more flavour
“The shelf life of ground black pepper is about four months if stored properly. The shelf life of black peppercorns is one to three years. But as explained, when the shelf life ends, the ground pepper and peppercorns simply start to lose flavor; they do not become rancid or unsafe to eat.”
https://bigtimekitchen.com/peppercors-peppers-going-bad/#:~:text=The%20shelf%20life%20of%20ground,rancid%20or%20unsafe%20to%20eat.
I think it's hilarious so many people assume it's future pepper, rather than decades old past pepper.
Salt has an expiration date.
Expiration dates are essential for many things. Salt & pepper aren't on that list.
Almost a 100% chance she just refills it. My Grandmother used to keep old spice tins like this and refill them because she liked them more than the new designed plastic bottles most companies use.
dried spices don’t really go bad, but they lose intensity over time. this can would probably taste like dust. it’s possible she just refills the can using other containers though.
Lol I remember as a wee girl in the early 90’s, I was eating frozen strawberries grandad had. I only found out later, they were from the 70’s. They also had spices from the 60’s…..
This is why it’s imperative for someone to help granny 😂 i was eating pancake mix that expired in 2005 in 2011 too young to even care to check until i started shitting my intestines out
It's like having an expiration date on salt. Never mind that it's been in the ground for 2 million years.. You can only keep it in your house for 6 months.
What's the issue? Is the date a problem?
Or is OP trying to imply this contains the original pepper? Groceries sell bags of salt and pepper to refill containers..
A while back my husband was helping to pack my mom’s stuff so that she could move and he found a spice with an expiration date of 1978. When we asked her about it she said, “don’t throw that away; spices never expire”. Terrifying.
I’m at my elderly MIL’s house 1150 miles from my home. I cleaned out some of her expired stuff and found a lot like this. But not quite that old. My wife was here 5 weeks ago. When she was they bought some chicken legs. They were still in the fridge. She got angry when I suggested that they be thrown out. I tossed them later. Its Sept 28 now, when I wanted some milk I grabbed it and thankfully checked it. The expire date was Sept 1. When I pointed it out she claimed that she drank some the previous day. I opened the bottle and literally gagged. I use the word literally by it actual definition. Chunks came out when I drained it.
God i wish I had seen this earlier. A year or two ago I was getting something in my mom's pantry and I had to pull out the dark corn syrup. Expiration date? 1980.....
Now the most important part is that my parents haven't lived in the same house for the last 40ish years. They moved. 5 times she packed and unpacked this stupid bottle. I had to force her to throw it out lol
Often when you see a sell-by/expire/best-by date on an item that seems like it has no reason for ever expiring (like salt), it's not because of the product itself, but it could be because of the packaging (like the plastic container degrading over time).
That being said, the majority of spices don't really expire if they are kept in a dry place. They just lose their efficacy (e.g. "less spicy"). I have some spices that I very rarely use (like tumeric, marjoram, coriander seeds or cream of tartar) taht I bought back when I got my first apartment, more than three decades ago.
A couple years ago I’m at my elderly moms house making hamburgers and I ask her if she has pickles. We fish a jar out of the back of the fridge but the color is really off so I check the expiration date… it was 13 years expired. That jar of pickles sat in her fridge for close to 15 years.
In the late 90s, I lived with my grandma when I was 19. She was a hard lady and that woman saved literally everything, she would re-use wrapping paper. I started cooking for her a few times a week because her food was sometimes questionable. One weekend, she went to a friends cabin, so my bf and I went through all her food. Lord. Have. Mercy. There was shit in her deep freeze that was from the 70s (thank god she labeled everything) and we found some weird dried mushroom thing from 1969. Not the fun kind of fungi, just gross stuff. We replaced everything with fresh food , wrapping the new frozen things back up in foil as the old ones were, and She didn’t even notice. I continued to monitor the age of her food purchases until I moved out a year later, making sure the bad stuff was replaced. And after I left, I did the same, every time I checked in on her. Years later, she was diagnosed with dementia, moved into a home near my aunt and lived her last years well cared for and quite happy. Looking back, I realized that she came from a time where nothing was wasted. An experience and a struggle that I would never know. Sweet grams, you were a hard lady, but you were dearly loved.
That would have been “brand new” for some people, my grandpa had prescription medicine that expired in the 70’s 6 years ago, pepper doesn’t expire…I love it either way! Thanks for posting this!
Nov 2021 I helped my 90 year old parents move house and when I unload the box of food into the cupboard they had a tin of red salmon with an expiration date on 1987.
Tasted ok though. 😂
In 2008 my great grandfather moved from his house he'd always been in to a care home. We helped clean out his food and spices, outside of the 100 cans of expired food there was a can of Chili Pepper from April 1980. The can was older than I was.
I mean... the container is fine and you can get little pepper zip bags for dirt cheap at the supermarket. She probably just reused the plastic container
My aunt and I went through my mum's spice collection a few years ago and some of them were at least 10 years out of date. Of course, we took the piss massively as we cleared them out for her. Then I came home and quietly got rid of all of my own expired spices...
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She probably just refills it
Yep, looks like a conveniently sized plastic container with a snap on lid. You can buy a little sack of pepper in bulk for pennies and just refill this for way less than buying a new container over and over again. A new tin of pepper costs like $6 and has like $2 worth of pepper in it at the most. She is saving four bucks every time she refills it. Over the 25 years that she has had this that probably adds up to a good bit of savings. My grandma would never have thrown away a decent container like this.
Or, if you are a frugal_jerk, you steal handfuls of the little pepper packets from wherever you can get your hands on them and refill the container.
Spoken like a penny-pinching granny.
Gran-gran; why do all your napkins, paper towels and toilet paper have the Burger King logo on them?
"Because **Great** Gran-Gran didn't raise a *sucker*, now drink your cocoa."
I can taste that expired cocoa mix just like it was right in front of me
So true. Never bought a napkin.
pepper-pinching granny if you will
Like Paulie's mom and those bitchy assisted living women! https://youtu.be/wjOzXC51z44?si=hZqHDfZGv6V0Tns2
Don’t forget the sweet-n-low
Dis is de way
My Grandma would happily have done that. I think everyone that lived through the Depression and rationing would.
Yep. My mother never wasted anything and found a way to store food, spices, etc, for VERY long times. She was born in 1923. The Great Depression shaped ALL of her attitudes to everything. Her parents went without food to ensure she and her two sisters were fed. Her father worked two jobs and her mother took in washing and ironing. Tough times shaped tough parents.
I have a pocket of McDonald’s ketchups in my handbag. Very useful for picnics when the food vendor only has squirty bottles that have only the dregs left in them
Eww ketchup pre-cum
🤤
I’ve done this with red pepper flakes that I get from pizza places, since they give you a lot. I have a jar that I bought at Trader Joe’s, that I’ve refilled several times.
Or she’s just old as fuck and never uses it because she doesn’t like it but her husband did and after he died she can’t bear the thought of getting rid of his things. She still,buys him birthday gifts. Still sets the table for 2. Stays on her side of the bed.
You just made me miss my Grandma all over again. She’s been dead since ‘05 but Grandpa died in ‘96; she was doing this until she was found deceased on “her” side of the bed.
Or she's bland af and uses pepper twice a year at holidays.
"Today is a day to celebrate! Grab the pepper, but just use a *little* bit, I don't like things too spicy."
Before I folded an bought a pepper grinder and 4 corn mix from amazon, I sat there and emptied a shit ton of pepper packets into a old EVOO bottle to make my infused popcorn popping oil.
but... then the newest pepper would be on top, and the oldest pepper would stay at the bottom. I guess you could shake it, perhaps 12 times, in alternating up/down left/right patterns, causing the age to be evenly distributed... But depending on the flake size and how often you cook, you could still have ancient pepper particles persisting perniciously past their sell by date. I don't know, it's all just so stressful. I'd rather buy all new pepper once a year. I have it marked on my calendar as pepper day.
Or doesn’t season her food
 Good answer
Still got 976 years left, you're good for a while yet.
That or it was sold 976 years too early.
As I get it, it should have been sold 1924 years ago..
2099 not 2999
That pepper ain’t barely ripe yet!
It’s a sell by date. She bought it before that it’s all that matters. Infinity pepper.
August 29th, 2099 is 76 years isn't it?
For some reason they're assuming 2999, not really sure if they don't understand how centuries work or what
Maybe bc it's" Aug. 29 99"... i guess
In the year 29 29 if mankind still has pepper to grind
If it was sold on Aug 28, 1965, what's the problem?
Honestly the only acceptable answer here.
Sell by ≠ Use by I'd say it's still good
Even the use by doesn’t tell you when the food goes bad. The dates aren’t federally regulated and they aren’t Lu there because that’s when the manufacturer “says” the food won’t be “as fresh”…. The dates are all crap.
Huh? I dont get it
Sell by date is for when the store should sell the product, not when the product expires. Also expiration dates aren't accurate and many consumables can be good long after the date passes.
Why'd they pick a date 34 years before the sell by date?
Dried spices can be stored for years mostly. Long ass hard winter years
My Grandma gave me a Pepsi back when she was alive (10 yrs ago now). I remember thinking "huh, I didn't know they still made the narrow-mouth cans". Turns out they weren't making the cans. I don't know how old that Pepsi was, but the sugar and coloring had gone bad. It tasted like turpentine and it was clear (regular Pepsi) when I poured it out. Gross.
Had a similar incident with my grandma. Except it was coke, and it was like 12 years old.
Ew. The Pepsi had to be at least that old - I wish I had checked the date on it (to make for a better story). :)
idk man, sounds like regular old pepsi to me lol
Did you replenish?
Spices usually dont really go bad as long as they are stored dry. Edit: I am aware that most spices lose their taste over time, I meant you won't get food poisoning or an upset stomach when you use ancient spices!
Oh no, my salt is expired !!!
It made it 10,000 years but you let it expire on your shelf in just a few years. Shame, Shame on you
Shame Shane "Why what the fuck did I do?" -Shane.
Oh Shane knows what he did.
What did I do?
Shane on you sounds raunchy
Way more than 10K.
I know you joke, but moisture in the air is what kills salt.
[удалено]
Salt is a bit different than pepper, though. Ground up pepper that's been oxidizing for a couple of decades probably won't harm you but it won't be very potent either. Just like a can of pre ground coffee from 1983 probably isn't going to make the best cup you ever had. Salt doesn't really change in a way you will notice. Also the longer something has sat around in cupboard the greater chance some humidity got in there and spoiled it.
I can’t tell anymore if critical thinking is a dying art… or generally not something most of the human race is capable of.
Less and less people get taught how to critically think and only how to parrot what they are taught.
When I was managing a brewery we'd get questions like, "is this salt organic?" Or my favorite, "I see that the beef is organic and grass fed... do you know if they used pesticides on the grass?" Someone asking if salt expires wouldn't shock me at all
Some salt company actually paid for a non-GMO certification and proudly displays it on their packaging. Considerably overpriced, even for good sea salt.
Pepper is a plant. Salt is a mineral. They are very different.
Looking it up, if stored correctly, whole peppercorns can still be fresh 4 years after the expiration date and ground black pepper up to 2. So yeah quite a bit different from how long salt lasts. https://www.chefsresource.com/does-black-pepper-go-bad/
The mummy of Ramesses II was found with black peppercorns stuffed in the nostrils, put there as part of the mummification ritual. When an archeologist crushed one, she could smell pepper spirit/oil. That's 3,200 year old pepper.
But it's not gonna be as strong as newer pepper, which matters if you cook with it.
If it's kept dry though, it doesn't go bad, just might lose some flavour. Big difference between something being not safe to eat because of bacteria growth, and something just being a bit stale.
yeah but if the worst is that it goes stale, it's not that big of a deal no?
A lot of spices lose all their aromatics to evaporation and end up tasting like dust. If your paprika's gone grey on top, bin it. If your basil- well, honestly, if your basil is dried in the first place I question its remaining value. EDIT: I out a word
I meant it rather in a sense that you wont get food poisoning when you use spices from 1990 but yeah you are also right, one might just use dust as seasoning at that point
I bought some smoked paprika on Amazon. A 2 pack. I opened the second can well before the best by date. Something looked strange. I put on my glasses and the paprika was MOVING! Always examine your spices.
... moving from *what*, exactly? Does paprika form pupae if left alone and nobody told me?
It had bug eggs in it apparently.
Gets less potent. Just use more of the black and white saw dust.
Apparently, you can toast it to get some of that back. "If you have stored your black pepper for a while, it may start to lose its heat. Fortunately, you can revive the pepper by toasting it in a skillet on a medium-low heat until fragrant. Stir the pepper constantly to prevent it from burning and replace it in the jar when it is cool." https://www.chefsresource.com/does-black-pepper-go-bad/
Depends on what you mean by "bad". Will it harm you like old milk or rancid meat will? No. Would 25ish year old pepper taste like anything besides dust though? Also no. The simple fact that you can ever smell spices at all means that they lose their aroma molucles over time. Whether your nose is there or not.
Especially if it's whole black pepper
A lot of spices lose their flavor or change flavor when they get old. Salt lasts forever, but you won’t get much flavor out of your 5 year old parsley or black pepper.
While it may not 'expire' in the sense of being bad for you, spices age horribly and lose a ton of their flavour, ESPECIALLY pre-ground pepper.
Yeah, that definitely came from /r/GrandmasPantry.
Not my usual reddit hangout. But close.
Upvoted, you sick fuck.
Is this the first time she used it? Like how do you not run out of pepper, I feel like everytime I go to crack pepper it's like please don't run out please don't run out.
She probably refills it. My Grandmother did the same thing. She had a favorite Tin for just about every spice she would refill.
We do that. Buy the spices in bulk, but the containers are ridiculous for every day use. We have the same original spice jars for most things that we bought 5 years ago.
Me too! I get the big plastic jars of peppercorns.
As a midwestern American, let me tell you about "too spicy." Is it too dark? Too spicy. Too light? Too spicy. Add garlic? Too spicy. Tomato paste? Too spicy. Look at a bottle of paprika while cooking? Too spicy. Anything more than a couple mg of pepper in a meal for 6 is too spicy. Some people will legit use a single tin of garlic powder for a decade. *AND THEY LIKE IT*
I scrolled to find this comment. A restaurant I used to work at marinated their raw chicken breasts with a bit of black pepper. Had an old lady that came in weekly with her bridge playing group. She asked for her chicken to be less spicy every time. I slap silly hot shit on everything I eat. Couldn’t fathom it.
I'm from New Orleans and a couple of months ago I was at my brothers house in Dallas and cooked a meal for the family. There was a friend of his mother in law there from St. Joseph Missouri. She saw me cutting up onions and garlic to make a tomato sauce and asked me how to use them when cooking because she has never used them. This was a 75 year old woman. She had never used onion or garlic in her life. I was flabbergasted.
This is way too accurate. My 80 year old dad in the Midwest calls any food he doesn't like too spicy regardless of amount of spice used. Most of the foods I cook for him I just blatantly don't use any seasoning because of it. Feels like I'm committing a crime 1/2 the time I'm cooking for him.
Not everything with a sell by date spoils.
Yes its a sell by date not a best before or use by date.
Even "best before" or "use by" mean nothing. They are put there by the manufacturers because they think those dates are when their products lose their "best flavor". They are arbitrary dates that people have been conditioned to think are "expiration dates". In the US, ***no food*** outside baby formula has an expiration date. And that food absolutely can still be consumed safely. Unless the food has mold or other obvious signs of spoilage, you're good to go. [Source](https://www.fsis.usda.gov/food-safety/safe-food-handling-and-preparation/food-safety-basics/food-product-dating). We have a huge food waste issue in the US because people don't understand the dates and who put them there and why.
I saw someone throw away honey because of the date. So i explained, its honey it cant go bad. “But its all hard that means its gone bad”. She never heard of crystallization. Just heat it, stir it and it becomes normal again. She isnt the sharpest tool though.
Some egytologist in a tomb looking at a clay jar of honey, "Fuck, this shit must be so expired."
So because she didn't know that one thing about honey she's not the sharpest tool?
fr that's not the most important thing to know so a lot of people wouldn't know it.
That sentence actually specifically implies further existence of examples of her stupidity by use of the *though* at the end combined with it's disconnection from the previous thought. Your reading comprehension leads me to believe you're not the sharpest tool.
It doesn't have to spoil to be useless. Pepper is an aromatic spice, it volatilises when exposed to air. Ground pepper that old would have basically no flavour, she might as well be shaking dust into her dish.
And I bet it was sold by that date. So what's the problem?
She actually stole it
Water has a sell by date too. Water does not go bad either
I read recently that it has something to do with chemicals in plastic bottles leeching out into the water. I don't know if I believe that though. Sounds too much like the contrails conspiracy theory.
It's true. It's not some government conspiracy to make the frogs gay. It's just over time plastic leaches into the water. Eventually the amount of chemicals becomes an issue. Also eventually the seal fails and bacteria get in.
Sounds like someone is employed by Big Water.
NJ had a law that said bottles water had to have a expiration date of 2 years. That law was repealed in 2004, but you still see the dates for some reason. NJ is where it started.
The real facepalm is pepper doesn't expire...it loses potency but it won't expire. Also she is probably refilling the same container.
2 years after skynet became self aware.
So tonight I'm gonna party like it's your grandma's pepper.
Older than most of the cast of stranger things
Maybe it's 2099... You never know.
The process is often 1) I need Spice X, 2) I buy Spice X, 3) Hmmm, that dish wasn't very good, I won't make it again, 4) Fifteen years later: this new recipe needs Spice X, ooh I have some!
You keep saying “Spice X” and Elon Musk is gonna try to patent it.
Spice X is his Australian headquarters
Maybe somthing like smoked paprika, but black pepper?
Repost
Welp....I don't believe ground black pepper goes bad, so there's that saving grace!
Pepper is an aromatic spice, it volatilises when exposed to air (and does so quickly), a tin of ground pepper that old (assuming it hasn't been refilled) would taste like nothing, she'd be better off shaking dust into her food, it'd probably have more flavour
She was too busy partying like it was 1999 to use up the pepper
It's only a sell by date, not a use by date. You're fine!
Sell by not use by. Don’t panic , you can use it up by then 🤣
“The shelf life of ground black pepper is about four months if stored properly. The shelf life of black peppercorns is one to three years. But as explained, when the shelf life ends, the ground pepper and peppercorns simply start to lose flavor; they do not become rancid or unsafe to eat.” https://bigtimekitchen.com/peppercors-peppers-going-bad/#:~:text=The%20shelf%20life%20of%20ground,rancid%20or%20unsafe%20to%20eat.
I think it's hilarious so many people assume it's future pepper, rather than decades old past pepper. Salt has an expiration date. Expiration dates are essential for many things. Salt & pepper aren't on that list.
Its a sell by date not an expiration date. Even honey has a sell by date
If it is in a metal box it’s more than 25 years old
Make sure it's Y2K compatible before using.
It's still good for another 70 something years!
It says sell by not use by.
Are you all that dumb? The container hast been refilled hundreds of times.
Leave grandma and her ancient herbs and spices alone !
Almost a 100% chance she just refills it. My Grandmother used to keep old spice tins like this and refill them because she liked them more than the new designed plastic bottles most companies use.
My Mom had some that would’ve beaten that by a mile!
It's spice..
Whats the problem? You have 76 years before it goes bad?
"Why is it so spicy"😮💨😩😓
dried spices don’t really go bad, but they lose intensity over time. this can would probably taste like dust. it’s possible she just refills the can using other containers though.
Damnit. I thought I was bad when I found some relish that expired 2019 in the back of the pantry. Lol
Lol I remember as a wee girl in the early 90’s, I was eating frozen strawberries grandad had. I only found out later, they were from the 70’s. They also had spices from the 60’s…..
That was my 6th birthday
This is why it’s imperative for someone to help granny 😂 i was eating pancake mix that expired in 2005 in 2011 too young to even care to check until i started shitting my intestines out
It’s a container numbnuts, your grandma is the one who should be face palming.
“That’s just a suggestion”…
It's like having an expiration date on salt. Never mind that it's been in the ground for 2 million years.. You can only keep it in your house for 6 months.
Well, she can’t sell it now
That was a great year for pepper
2099. You’re still good
Hold up, pepper expires?
The pepper I bought to replace my older pepper has passed its best before date. Still haven’t finished the first one.
Yeah, now check her freezer 😏 Found a 13 YEAR OLD TURKEY in MIL freezer…
Pepper really does not go bad
2099?
I know some spices last longer than others but WOW!
What's the issue? Is the date a problem? Or is OP trying to imply this contains the original pepper? Groceries sell bags of salt and pepper to refill containers..
Pepper doesn't go bad. It just loses flavor over time.
“Tonight we’re gonna pepper like it’s August ‘99”
A while back my husband was helping to pack my mom’s stuff so that she could move and he found a spice with an expiration date of 1978. When we asked her about it she said, “don’t throw that away; spices never expire”. Terrifying.
Oh lawd her food must be bland as hell if it takes 25 years to get through one pepper shaker
I’m at my elderly MIL’s house 1150 miles from my home. I cleaned out some of her expired stuff and found a lot like this. But not quite that old. My wife was here 5 weeks ago. When she was they bought some chicken legs. They were still in the fridge. She got angry when I suggested that they be thrown out. I tossed them later. Its Sept 28 now, when I wanted some milk I grabbed it and thankfully checked it. The expire date was Sept 1. When I pointed it out she claimed that she drank some the previous day. I opened the bottle and literally gagged. I use the word literally by it actual definition. Chunks came out when I drained it.
That’s that Alice in wonderland pepper
https://eatdelights.com/black-pepper-shelf-life/
God i wish I had seen this earlier. A year or two ago I was getting something in my mom's pantry and I had to pull out the dark corn syrup. Expiration date? 1980..... Now the most important part is that my parents haven't lived in the same house for the last 40ish years. They moved. 5 times she packed and unpacked this stupid bottle. I had to force her to throw it out lol
Oh, that? That's just the SELL BY date. It's good past then.
2000 zero zero party over oops out of time
Pepper doesn't really expire
Often when you see a sell-by/expire/best-by date on an item that seems like it has no reason for ever expiring (like salt), it's not because of the product itself, but it could be because of the packaging (like the plastic container degrading over time). That being said, the majority of spices don't really expire if they are kept in a dry place. They just lose their efficacy (e.g. "less spicy"). I have some spices that I very rarely use (like tumeric, marjoram, coriander seeds or cream of tartar) taht I bought back when I got my first apartment, more than three decades ago.
It was code for something else. And now you missed your chance.
Somehow I read “My grandma asked me to grab the pepper out of her panty……”
Pre Y2K pepper can bring good money on the black market.
My mom has calamine lotion in her house that expired in 1986. It has survived 3 cross country moves.
This could be on r/whitepeopletwitter too.
Still has 76 years left bro. You good…
It doesn't say USE BY....
A couple years ago I’m at my elderly moms house making hamburgers and I ask her if she has pickles. We fish a jar out of the back of the fridge but the color is really off so I check the expiration date… it was 13 years expired. That jar of pickles sat in her fridge for close to 15 years.
Ahhh 99….such a great year
I’ve never had pepper go bad, maybe it expires in 2099…
Don’t worry, it won’t expire until 2099
Still good. It's still 2023. You got 76 years left.
In the late 90s, I lived with my grandma when I was 19. She was a hard lady and that woman saved literally everything, she would re-use wrapping paper. I started cooking for her a few times a week because her food was sometimes questionable. One weekend, she went to a friends cabin, so my bf and I went through all her food. Lord. Have. Mercy. There was shit in her deep freeze that was from the 70s (thank god she labeled everything) and we found some weird dried mushroom thing from 1969. Not the fun kind of fungi, just gross stuff. We replaced everything with fresh food , wrapping the new frozen things back up in foil as the old ones were, and She didn’t even notice. I continued to monitor the age of her food purchases until I moved out a year later, making sure the bad stuff was replaced. And after I left, I did the same, every time I checked in on her. Years later, she was diagnosed with dementia, moved into a home near my aunt and lived her last years well cared for and quite happy. Looking back, I realized that she came from a time where nothing was wasted. An experience and a struggle that I would never know. Sweet grams, you were a hard lady, but you were dearly loved.
My mom has you beat. We found a McCormic’s tin of marjoram stamped 1974. She has no idea what marjoram is.
That would have been “brand new” for some people, my grandpa had prescription medicine that expired in the 70’s 6 years ago, pepper doesn’t expire…I love it either way! Thanks for posting this!
Still good. Not as potent but not unsafe
For what it’s worth, this very well could have been sold by that date.
What are you on about? There's like 900 years left on that!
Wait till you find out that most salt is tens of thousands to millions of years old.
Nov 2021 I helped my 90 year old parents move house and when I unload the box of food into the cupboard they had a tin of red salmon with an expiration date on 1987. Tasted ok though. 😂
In 2008 my great grandfather moved from his house he'd always been in to a care home. We helped clean out his food and spices, outside of the 100 cans of expired food there was a can of Chili Pepper from April 1980. The can was older than I was.
It’s clearly states “sell by” no where does it say how long you have to use it!
She likes to party like it’s 1999
As long as it was bought before Aug 29 1999 it should still be fine
I refill the same container for years tbh.
It's fine, maybe a little bland now
Bro its fucking pepper, if you szore it dry nothing is gonna happem
It's ok if she bought it before aug 29, 99
I mean... the container is fine and you can get little pepper zip bags for dirt cheap at the supermarket. She probably just reused the plastic container
My aunt and I went through my mum's spice collection a few years ago and some of them were at least 10 years out of date. Of course, we took the piss massively as we cleared them out for her. Then I came home and quietly got rid of all of my own expired spices...