What's the Oldest Thing in your Pantry?

[Soup]

I have season salt that's dated Jan 01. Still salty.

[purplewiz]

This thread inspired me to go check the back of the canned goods shelf to verify that my guess was right - and it was. There are cans of Libby's Pumpkin and Jellied Cranberry sauce - one of which had leaked, so it is now in the garbage. I figure these date sometime from the late 90's.

There's also a canister of tamarind paste that dates from around 2000. I hope it's still ok!

Until earlier this summer, though, the oldest thing in my cabinets was a box of toothpicks I bought in 1986. It took me that long to use up the box of 750.

Marcia.

[ruthcooks]

I've been cleaning my pantry, also, and was thinking of starting this thread myself. It's a habit of mine to purchase hard-to-find gourmet groceries and leave them on the shelf untried because "you don't know when you'll find them again." With on-line shopping this isn't much of a problem anymore, but old habits die hard.

Right now I have some dried morels that I bought on sale about 8 years ago. When I got them home, I found that the package was open and I never could decide if it was safe to use them or not. Also on the oldsters list are: canned chestnuts and vacuum packed chestnuts from the time I was toying with trying to make chestnuts in rum syrup because I couldn't find them anymore. A couple of years ago I found the real thing at Zingerman's, and never figured out what to do with the canned/vaccum packed ones.

There are unoped packages of fleur de sel, leaf gelatin, low carb flour mix--whatever possessed me?--and salted capers. The latter look like dried out dead bugs and I haven't had the nerve to try them.

About four years ago I threw out an opened bottle of blackberry brandy purchase in Mexico before my son was born. He just turned 40.

[tsquare]

Mine would have to be decorative jars of dried things like juniper berries...I haven't really got a clue what to do wth them. They were all purchased in the late 80's. (

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That's sad - you can crush them and use them in a rub - see Braising with Molly, if I recall my last pork roast.

I have booze I moved with in 1985. And a jar of cranberry rum compote (commercially packed) and a small bottle of maple syrup that have to be from the late 1980's since I recall how they were acquired. Figure they are good for a long time with all the sugar, as long as the seals are intact, but why am do I keep them? Gelatin packages too - do they go bad? One of these days I am going to make espresso jello.

[chappie]

I had forgotten another of Dad's entries into the packrat hall of fame. It was about 1990 or so, and he was tinkering in our crusty old green shed. He uncovered some cans of C-rations from Vietnam, paused for a moment to reminisce -- then opened one up and took a bite. I think it was either beans or some sort of ham product. Now that's old.

The respondents who have named items from the late 1990s... that's still new to him. This was a man who used to hang country hams for years in the aforementioned shed, and who has somewhere buried in one of his four freezers an albino squirrel we found dead when I was a kid. He had hoped to get it stuffed one day; I fear it may have been stewed instead.

[prasantrin]

My mother has an unopened bottle of Tab in her basement. She says it's from my dad's dieting days--way back in the early '60's. For some reason, the bottle was put into storage in '67 or '68, when my parents moved back to Thailand from New Mexico. Then when they moved to Canada in '69, the bottle was sent along with all their other stuff from NM. I still haven't figured out why we still have it...

Oh, she also has a bottle of poppy seeds from '69 or '70, which she bought when she first moved to Canada. And I think she has some marzipan, too.

[srhcb]

My mother has an unopened bottle of Tab in her basement.  She says it's from my dad's dieting days--way back in the early '60's.  For some reason, the bottle was put into storage in '67 or '68, when my parents moved back to Thailand from New Mexico.  Then when they moved to Canada in '69, the bottle was sent along with all their other stuff from NM.  I still haven't figured out why we still have it...

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Unopened old Tab bottles sell on eBay for around $10 for a 7 oz bottle and over $30 for a 26 oz.

SB (never cared for the aftertaste of Tab)

[srhcb]

Oh, she also has a bottle of poppy seeds from '69 or '70, which she bought when she first moved to Canada.  And I think she has some marzipan, too.

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Whoa!

Back in the 50's my grandparents used to get a Harry & Davids Gift Basket every Christmas from my Aunt who lived in Oregon. The Basket included three marzipan strawberries. My brother, sister and I would each get one of them.

Because I liked marzipan so much, and it was so rare, some years I couldn't bring myself to eat mine and it would become rock hard. I never threw them away though, so there must still be a few stashed away with some of my old stuff.

SB (unless my damned Teddy Bear ate them?)

[mizducky]

I threw out all of my oldies but goodies when I last moved. However, we do have a few aged things haunting our cupboards, presumably abandoned by one or another of Fearless Housemate's previous housemates. The oldest thing--I think--is this poor orphaned packet of microwave popcorn. Nobody in this house seems to care for popcorn, let alone that horrid microwave stuff; but nobody seems willing to just toss the damn thing, either (hey--someone might want it someday!) so it just stays there, or periodically slithers out and hits one in the head when one is searching for something else. Next time it does that, I swear, I will send the poor thing off to that big Compost Heap in the Sky.

[BarbaraY]

I have a jar full of "saffron" that I bought at G.B. Ratto's in the early 70's, as best I recall. I have carted it around everywhere I've moved in the last 35 years. I don't know why I keep it because it isn't really saffron but safflower.

That was when Ratto's was a really fun place to shop. There were bags of beans and dals sitting open near the door and all sorts of amazing gadgets. Now they have "upgraded" but they lost something special in the transition.

Edited October 15, 2005 by BarbaraY (log)

[Milt]

My first wife and I divorced just over thirty years ago. Inspired by William Conrad's TV character, Cannon, I went to Venture and bought one of each of the Spice Island offerings. I had drams of becoming the single gourmet chef that the private detective was. It didn't happen! The common items were consumed quickly, one I remarried and started eating and cooking at home again. Some of the"Why did I ever think I would need/want/use that?" type are still around. Occasionally a bit of one of those will make its way into a recipe. I am sure that we only taste the other (more recently purchased) seasonings, but I am gradually getting them used.

[bavila]

Glad to hear my saffron isn't the oldest around, although mine really is saffron. My husband picked it up in Turkey in 1998 when he was deployed. He got a ton of it, and I've only used a few threads.

[tsquare]

Glad to hear my saffron isn't the oldest around, although mine really is saffron.  My husband picked it up in Turkey in 1998 when he was deployed.  He got a ton of it, and I've only used a few threads.

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Not even close. I have some of the real good stuff inherited 22 years ago (how long before was it purchased?) I have bought and acquired more since, but that particular envelope in a jar always seems too precious to use. And it still smells and looks great.

[highchef]

The oldest thing I have is a jar of chestnuts..from 1978