Me: I ain’t eating that.
Her: I don’t care. You eat your food and I will eat mine.
According to the USDA, food that has been left out of the fridge for more than two hours or one hour if it’s a hot day, should be thrown away. This hygienic information is what I was taught from my grandmother and Science class in high school. Basically after eating, all of the leftovers were refrigerated to be eaten later. It makes sense to me.
The problem is that I live in the boonies of Thailand and the guidelines for storing food from the USDA has not reached this part of the World. Thais tend to throw away very little food. What’s not eaten in the evening is almost certainly consumed the next day.
The mother and daughter team shown below always have a food stall that is open from morning until late evening. It’s not really a restaurant, they simply fill a plastic bag with whatever Thai dish the customers chooses to take home to eat with their rice. Now this food is left out in the open all day and if not sold, it will likely be on the menu for the following day. None of it is refrigerated. You might be asking if Thais ever get food poisoning and the answer would be sometimes, but surprisingly not that often.
Below is one of our workers who has been with us for years. Here Jaew can be seen making a special dish from a snake that had been killed earlier that day. The smell was pungent to say the least. Regardless, everyone said it was delicious and the leftovers were simply left out until the next day and then eaten for breakfast. I had bacon and eggs.
Thai must have cast iron stomachs is what I think. For example, the pork being sold at the local market only sees the refrigerator at night. Actually, it only sees the ice chest and it comes and goes until it is sold. Personally, I don’t buy meat from the local shops anymore, instead I shop at Tesco.
However, I will buy vegetables from the local market. The blue arrow is pointing to my veggie lady. Nothing she sells is ever cooled or iced down. I pay close attention to the mushrooms.
At the end of the day I still save my leftovers like my grandmother did according to the USDA suggested guidelines and my wife stores most of her leftovers just like her ancestors did. Obviously, someone misunderstands this hygienic habit of storing leftovers.