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white mold on beef - what could it be...

jon

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J
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Mar 23, 2006
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Had some diced beef in the fridge. Made a nice curry with most of it this evening; myself and two others enjoyed it. Noticed some of the leftover bits of (raw) meat have fluffy white mold on them. Ugh. Didn't notice any on what I cooked, but they had all been in the same container in the fridge...and I did marinade then wipe them b4 cooking, which would have removed any mold...

So do I assume it's something nice like penicillin, and chuck the rest of the meat in a stew ;) Do I just bin the meat (and leftover curry)...or should I warn the others who ate the curry what they ate :D Everyone who ate the curry is young-ish and healthy...but not sure whether I should feel bad about what I fed them or not ;)
 
Well, I'm feeling fine, anyway :) And the other victims had a couple of beers, so can always blame that if they do feel ill ;)

Thanks for the link - probably Thamnidium elegans or Mucor racemosus, then? Hmm - so if I stick the rest of the curry in the freezer, and if no-one gets ill assume it's good to eat...
 
jon said:
Well, I'm feeling fine, anyway :) And the other victims had a couple of beers, so can always blame that if they do feel ill ;)

Thanks for the link - probably Thamnidium elegans or Mucor racemosus, then? Hmm - so if I stick the rest of the curry in the freezer, and if no-one gets ill assume it's good to eat...
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That's what I would think
 
jon said:
Had some diced beef in the fridge. Made a nice curry with most of it this evening; myself and two others enjoyed it. Noticed some of the leftover bits of (raw) meat have fluffy white mold on them. Ugh. Didn't notice any on what I cooked, but they had all been in the same container in the fridge...and I did marinade then wipe them b4 cooking, which would have removed any mold...

So do I assume it's something nice like penicillin, and chuck the rest of the meat in a stew ;) Do I just bin the meat (and leftover curry)...or should I warn the others who ate the curry what they ate :D Everyone who ate the curry is young-ish and healthy...but not sure whether I should feel bad about what I fed them or not ;)
Click to expand...


I don't think that it bothers most people, but I kind of react to mold, so some people might get the runs, I have found out that cooking doesn't always help.

I heated some stuff with out looking at it, and after I ate it I noticed the mold, it also happens with bread that is getting moldy.

I don't think it hurts any one, maybe it does, what do I know.
 
I once knew a Lakhota (aka Sioux) who deliberately hung his beef until it grew a little mold on the outside. He wasn’t in any sense a traditional Plains Indian, but he lived on meat if he could, and never suffered any bad effects from it.

When I still lived at home, we sometimes hung our game in warmer weather than we should have, but we et it up with great satisfaction – I believe you could say we lived on it.

So I doubt that anything growing in a fridge will hurt you. Anyway, I betcha curry was invented as a way of cooking dubious flesh foods, and it’s probably been around since Mohenjo Daro was a one-gaspump crossroads.
 
sackett said:
... Anyway, I betcha curry was invented as a way of cooking dubious flesh foods, and it’s probably been around since Mohenjo Daro was a one-gaspump crossroads.
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And so it goes for the evolution of sauces in French cooking too.
 
Well, no apparent damage (think the headache was down to the beer ;) ) Obviously a good mold :)

Apparently it's quite common for beef or game to get moldy when you hang it - the norm's to cut it off b4 eating, though....
 
The main reason for avoiding eating mouldy food is that some moulds secrete low-molecular-weight toxins, some of which are quite nasty and many of which will survive cooking. So-called secondary fungal metabolites are sometimes beneficial (e.g. penicillin, lots of other antibiotics, many other medicines) and sometimes the opposite (mycotoxins).

Moulds are fungi, just like mushrooms, and you know how you need to avoid eating the poisonous ones. The stuff growing in your fridge is one of the fungi that doesn't happen to form a mushroom-type structure, but otherwise it's a relative.

Cooking and eating mould (unless it's loaded with mycotoxin) is OK in the same way as cooking and eating mushrooms. You eat moulds in many cheeses and ingest yeasts (single-celled fungi) in beers. But since you're unlikely to be able to identify the mould(s) growing as spoilage entities, it's best and simplest to discard and avoid.
 
Apparently I grew nice (or at least harmless) funghi, then :) The irony being that what hurt the next morning was cause of the yeast in the beer - think I'd left some live beer a bit too long, and ended up with a hangover after one bottle :(
 
sackett said:
I once knew a Lakhota (aka Sioux) who deliberately hung his beef until it grew a little mold on the outside. He wasn’t in any sense a traditional Plains Indian, but he lived on meat if he could, and never suffered any bad effects from it.

When I still lived at home, we sometimes hung our game in warmer weather than we should have, but we et it up with great satisfaction – I believe you could say we lived on it.

So I doubt that anything growing in a fridge will hurt you. Anyway, I betcha curry was invented as a way of cooking dubious flesh foods, and it’s probably been around since Mohenjo Daro was a one-gaspump crossroads.
Click to expand...

I kind of doubt this, as well as the French story, because back before refrigeration, there were lots of small-time butchers, so the meat was seldom more than freshly dead.

On the other hand, various kinds of rotting have been and still continue to be an important part of flavoring food.
 
epepke said:
I kind of doubt this, as well as the French story, because back before refrigeration, there were lots of small-time butchers, so the meat was seldom more than freshly dead.

On the other hand, various kinds of rotting have been and still continue to be an important part of flavoring food.
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Some meat is better just killed (e.g. fish) some is better hung a few weeks (e.g. beef). Of course there are places where hanging might be impractical but where possible it is,and has historically been,done.

3 ribs of beef, hung for 4 weeks and roasted for 1 hour 45 minutes in my oven (gravy from the stock). Left to rest for another 40 minutes then carved - yummity, yum, yum, yum! Roll on next Sunday.
 
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