The way my MIL serves food grosses me out!

shnitzel

Mon, Mar 12 2012, 1:48 pm

cm wrote:

Barbara wrote:

Now you've made me curious. For people who use oven to table cookware, if you have leftovers, do you remove the food from the pan, wash the pan, and then replace it? Or do you reheat without doing so? It sounds to me as if OP is talking about "re-using" the foil pan as in using it until the food is finished, without washing. And I would assume that most people using disposable or non-disposable oven to table do that. But I could be wrong.

Let's take kugel as an example. I would put the baking pan in the fridge, or possibly transfer the contents to a storage container. Leftovers are dished out individually and the plates reheated in the microwave (obviously not on Shabbat/YT). Re-baking the pan makes the residue from the part that has already been served get all baked-on and burnt, and if you don't need the entire leftover portion at once it may be reheated/baked-on several times...not good for the flavor of the food, and not too appetizing (and I'm not very picky!).

I've seen this in my own extended family on Pesach, when more disposables are in use, reheating individual portions is not practical (YT), and a lot of leftovers are generated by the earlier meals. Kugels are taken out of the fridge and used for several (fairly casual) meals. By the third day of use, foil pans are so battered from handling that they aren't really presentable. I don't find it nauseating, just another example of how Pesach isn't quite like the rest of the year.

We call the burnt parts crispy and they are our favourite parts Smile

I don't use disposables ever and I do use serving dishes but I like the burnt onto the pan part of the food the best and I doubt I am the only one.

My parents always serve from tin foil pans and honestly you are probably less likely to have contamination when using fewer dishes between cooking and serving. As long as the inside of the pan that touches the food is clean it doesn't bother me. (Other than environmentally and financially and health wise, I've never bought disposable anything)

ra_mom

Mon, Mar 12 2012, 10:53 pm

Although serving food from disposable pans may be unappealing, I don't think that's what OP finds gross.

I have experienced something similar to what OP is describing. Let me try to explain what it's like to eat such food.
Imagine making a huge pot of fresh chicken soup the day before YT. Then transferring all the soup to a large disposable pan-slash-pot. Chicken, meat, soft vegetables and all. Then adding the knaidlach that were made for YT. And storing it all in the fridge.
Comes the 1st night of YT, and the disposable pan of soup is placed on the blech to heat through. The soup is served, and though the vegetables are starting to fall apart and the knaidlach are full of liquid, the soup is fresh and delicious. After the meal, the pan is placed in the refrigerator.
The next afternoon, that same pan is placed on the blech once again. The soup is getting a bit dark and concentrated, things are starting to float around in there, especially the crumbling knaidlach, but again, it still tastes good.
This is repeated the 2nd night, the 2nd day, the 3rd night, and the 3rd day. But that time, the soup is dark and bitter. Bones and skin are flying through it. The mushy vegetables are not recognizable. And what can I tell you... It's just gross.

Chana Miriam S

Mon, Mar 12 2012, 11:27 pm

I endeavour to only serve what I think I need when I serve, whether it is on foil and paper or real dishes. I work as a professional in the food industry and am conscious of the standards that I have to keep when working, even at home.

In a public venue, I would not ever re serve something that had been served onto a table with guests. In fact, when I serve lunch for 400 ppl monthly at my shul, we do not donate the leftovers that went out to the homeless, only the stuff that was kept in the kitchen, even if it was hot.

At home, when I make chicken soup, I will reheat over and over in the same pot, but that is about it. I am also super conscious of temperatures and know my foods well, in terms of what can and cannot be left out and what types of foods are the worst breeding grounds for bacteria and toxins.

That said, if people are serving either low risk food, or being careful with high risk food, then I can't see why serving in a foil pan is so bad. I do agree though that those who refrigerate, reheat and serve over and over again in the same pans are playing with fire, if they are not careful about temperatures, cleanliness and types of food that are prone to issues.

Use for example, rice. Seems safe, right? When I make sushi rice, I cut in the vinegar with a clean implement and leave it on the counter overnight, covered by a clean dish towel until cool and then a plastic cover.

If however, I catch anyone's fingers in the rice (which no one in my family would do) then off it goes into the fridge because as soon as someone touches it, the odds of bacteria growing in it at a rate capable of giving off toxins that make you sick go up astronomically. Worse yet if someone sticks their own fork in it (a la several mother in laws) These toxins cannot be killed by reheating. Believe it or not, rice is one of the most dangerous foods you can eat in a restaurant environment and the health department checks at often aimed at catching someone with unrefrigerated or not appropriately stored rice. Rice has made more people sick in restaurants than probably any other food . It seems so harmless, but it is moist and has lots of natural sugar in it, making it the perfect petri dish.

At home, I try not to serve all the food at one time, because I really hate putting it back, but for sure leftovers that made it to the table are given extra care. The odds go up that someone did sneeze, stick their fork in it or touch it with not immediately cleaned hands.

Like I said though, there is food safety and there is being plain or fancy. I don't object to proper food handling as no matter how it is served. as long as food that is heated up , is cooled appropriately before being refrigerated and the rest mentioned before, the worst thing you can do by reheating is destroy any flavour the food had, or texture.

ra_mom

Mon, Mar 12 2012, 11:55 pm

Squishy wrote:

ra_mom wrote:

amother wrote:

Im the OP...ra mom you understand me!!!!!!

I commiserate.

So ra mom, how do you handle it?

The Challah there is usually fresh and delicious, taken out from the freezer before the meal to reheat. There is a wide array of dips and fish. None are reheated, and they are careful to place the fish back in the fridge right away after everyone takes what they want. So I fill up on that. (And I don't know if it makes a difference or not. But the dips are served in plastic bowls and the fish served on large plates.)
The table and food (first course- see above), aside from the reheating problem and the disposable pans that are used for too long and leak aluminum (yes, you can taste it sometimes), are usually clean and good. That makes a big difference.
(Though when I was pregnant with my daughter, I was even grossed out by the fish as well.)
It's always nicer to go for a meal the first night of YT.
And Shabbos is MUCH easier to deal with and it's often a pleasure to be a guest at this particular home.

moonstone

Tue, Mar 13 2012, 3:23 am

ysmommy wrote:

mizle10 wrote:

ysmommy wrote:

I think it is gross after the first round.

Im not into being fancy and a fresh pan of chicken is fine but once you start with the reheating and fridging and all that it begins to look very unappitizing. I think it is not too much effort to buy a disposable platter and serve on that. I do that when we have guests. each platter costs 50 cents and my table looks decent.

I think everyone agrees its unappetizing. It's the dirty part I'm having a problem with.

when you have a crumpled up pan thats been heated up for the third time the edges tend to get gunky, burnt, and the actual food kind of shriveled and sorry looking. I can see someone thinking it looked "dirty" even if noone threw it on the floor or sneezed over it.

I agree completely. It's unappetizing, or, dare I say it- gross.

amother

Tue, Mar 13 2012, 10:32 am

op I agree with you its really nausiating. I grew up in a house where original containers were never brought to the table on shabbos its usually served in something else.
my mother would never think of bringing aluminum pans to the table and there was nothing fancy about our meals just normal ettiquette.
at my mil they do bring out original containers lots of times its ok but I dont do that in my home
and yes sometimes the pans also come out but there is a difference its not the same pan that is reheated over and over again with the same food in it that is gross!!!!!! Sick

I dont think the op cares so much about the food content as much as the same food is being served and reheated again and again in pan and served in it and it does not sound like she must be served in china. it really does not take that much to make food look appetizing a new plate for instance

op did anyone ask your mil y she does this

bashinda

Tue, Mar 13 2012, 11:19 am

It sounds like the MIL should be using more smaller foil containers. If she used smaller containers she would use up the food before it reheated to the point of grossosity. Btw, some people don't really realize this. It took me way too long before I realized that I can cook a big soup and then *shock* separate them into multiple plastic containers, freeze and only take out what I need. I don't think sending her a whole bunch of smaller foil containers would do the trick though. Things that might seem obvious to you, (and me a few years down the road Smile

) might not have occurred to your MIL.

I can relate though. Although I tend to put the dips out on the table in the original packaging, my ideal world is having at the very least nice disposable dip bowls to put them in. It just doesn't necessarily happen most of the time. I still feel happy thinking about that first Pesach when I finally had purchased a set of Pesach dishes. To me, disposable is sometimes necessary but to me there's something special about having real china for Shabbos and Yom Tov. Yes it's more work but to me it's worth it. At my most casual we'll do buffet style but I can't imagine bringing 9x13 foil pans on the table.

and yet I know people who would never dream of washing dishes on Pesach and if I had lots of guests on Pesach and had a larger family maybe I'd adapt. Sometimes life makes you adapt. B'hatzlacha, OP!

causemommysaid

Tue, Mar 13 2012, 7:34 pm

bashinda wrote:

lol good word