Storage of cooked turkey outside the fridge

We are staying with the german inlaws at the moment, and
I have serious concerns with my MIL's food handling. For God knows what reason- she cooked a large turkey (I guess about a 15 pounder) on the night of the 23rd. It then sat out in the "abstellraum" (spelling?) with temps fluctuating between -4 C and + 10 C until the 25th, when she re-heated it to eat at like 3pm. (God only knows why she didn't just cook it that day to begin with- at least it would've been fresh!) Again, since yesterday it's been out in that room and I fear it's going to make a return for dinner this afternoon/evening. I am not comfortable with eating this- and I'm not sure how I can diplomatically bow out as she is the total typical stubborn german hausfrau, whose running of all things in the household is completely without question...

be polite and say you are still full of turkey from yesterday.
it should be okay if it was fully cooked, but still, I wouldn't want to eat it either.

Or you could say for some reason your tummy is a bit upset and you can´t handle any more meat..-.

My ex- MIL was very much the same. She used to flour up her turkey schnitzels and then toss the used flour back in with the unused flour... yuck.

Agree with the others, tell her you're full/not feeling too hot/whatever and skip the bird. However, if you tell people you're not feeling well you might draw unwanted attention to yourself and get an earful of advice on how to improve your health. Plus, you're shooting yourself in the foot if you decide you'd like to nip out later for a pint or two.

Cooked, "refrigerated", served, "refrigerated" and will be served again today as leftovers. Whats the problem?

A properly cooked (unstuffed) turkey will last 3-4 days (today is day 3 for your MIL) and the temps you describe are comparable to a refrigerator and at -4°C is even colder. Whatever is not eaten today should come off the bone and be stored for tomorrow at the latest or frozen for later use.

can i come round for turkey left overs, will bring cranberry sauce, i didn't have a christmas dinner/lunch ... yes I know sad ... pity .. bring on the pity .. LOL ... send me your scraps ... woof woof

A quick conversion of 8-10C is about 48-50F, well above the recommended 38-40F of a normal fridge. Plus this is just my guesstimate based on the outside temps- probably it was even warmer in the last couple of days. (we are near Bocholt in the NW) It was noticably NOT refridgerator-cold yesterday and the day before in that room!

A refrigerator in use runs 8°C +/-4°C depending on how often the door is open and the outside temp. Normal settings try to keep it at 4-8°C depending on the quality of the fridge and few have quality fridges like I work with. For GLP and GMP, we have to monitor temps in all our equipment from freezers to fridges to incubators.

Regardless, you are allowed to be just as stubborn as your MIL in your own way. If you don't trust it and it smells funny, then say so and don't eat it.

The OP story doesn't surprise me at all.

It never ceases to amaze me how clueless some Germans are about food handling. My MIL got salmonella once, and I told my wife that although I sympathised, the old girl had it coming. They leave food out on the counter for days, and my wife has the same habit. I simply make sure to put things away in the fridge - or out on the balcony in winter - and that way I sleep a little better.

My ex's mum was also the same. I remember her doing a salad with lettuce and strawberries and serving it two days later... it looked disgusting but we still had to eat it!

Hahahaha, my MIL seems to have no fear of food poisoning, either. She'll leave stuff like casserole or soup sitting out in the kitchen all day or over night, and still eat it. Sorry, I just can't do that. Salmonella, anyone? She also has self-canned fruit and vegetables in her basement dating from 1987 and still thinks they're okay to eat. No thanks, I'll pass .

I am in the UK and my German bf who has lived here for years, is the same. He regularly leaves cooked food out overnight. I hate it, but never say anything. He would probably tell me I am being dramatic or something. I either hope we aren't going to be eating it, or keep my fingers crossed that it is cold enough in the kitchen if we are. Why on earth do they do this? I thought it was just him, but obviously not.

My MIL is a old Babushka who insists on leaving food on the stove even in the summertime. It may work in Siberia but not in Los Angeles!

I learned my lesson after eating borscht that had been on the stove for 2 or 4 days..no one even bothered to tell me how old and manky it was. They chowed it down like it was nothing and suffered no effects...I was not so lucky!

Those people either have stomachs of iron or mass quantities of vodka kills salmonella.

What is more confusing is that they will lock up bread in ten layers of plastic and put it in an airtight safe...to keep it fresh!

If it isn't freshly cooked or properly refrigerated..forget it!!

P.S. I only eat the bread now when I visit!

I had a similar concern earlier in the year...LOL

Do not mess with salmaonella poisoning. My sister-in-law's father died Dec 9th after fighting it for 6 weeks. It ate up his liver and was starting on his spine when he died in the MRI machine trying to figure out what was wrong with him. He was 71. RIP.

when i was in italy in a company apartment a german was also there and he coocekd spaggity and then left it over night and then i was pissed the next day when the stuff was still on the stove. he came home the next night and heated it and ate it again.

Reminds me, i bought a turkey for xmas one year, several weeks before Yuletide itself.

The guy who sold it me said it would last for about 6 weeks in the freezer ok.

I came down the next morning, opened the freezer and the fucking thing was dead.

Lying bastard.

Why do not folk get taught basic food hygiene?
At room temperature any bugs in the Turkey will breed.
The pathogen population DOUBLES every twenty minutes!!
Using the same knife to cut raw meat and cooked meat
is another good way to up your bug counts..
Did an interesting bit of work once for a fridge firm -
if you do not regularly clean your fridge inside you will
probably have a nice "hot-spot" there - bugs galore.
Clean your fridge inside regularly and/or make sure no
raw food touches the door or inner casing.

My German MIL is the same, but it's not just the older generation. I've had an awful time teaching my German husband about proper food hygeine and a German friend of mine in her 40's thought it was perfectly OK to cook some chicken drumsticks in the evening and then leave them sitting there in the oven overnight because she didn't have room in her fridge! I thought she was joking when she told me she was going to do it and she thought I was joking when I said it was an excellent way to get a lovely case of food poisoning. Bleh. It doesn't surprise me in the least that there are so many outbreaks of 'Magen-Darm' here with the way food is handled.

Wimps, the lot of you. Very few things spoil that fast that have been cooked properly and the majority of the bugs comes from your own improper hygiene in the first place. Do the feel, smell and taste test and when in doubt throw it out, but don't go all Monk on us. Quite a few things can be left out overnight with no problems whatsoever. Some things just need to be cool (room temp or less) and some things need to be cold (less than 12°C) for short term storage. Paranoia is no substitute for common sense.

With ev on this one, if it don't smell right, it ain't right.

Too many fastidious habits regarding hygiene is the reason why so many Americans people i've met have allergies and intolerance to common bugs.

I swear to dog, i had never ever heard of allergies to the extent i've met and heard of here until i started mixing with americans.

Edit : I have to exclude people who lived in what we would call " rural " communities and you yanks would call rednecks.

We leave food out overnight like cooked potatoes or veggies, pasta sometimes. Not meat though. None of us has ever had food poisoning.
When he was little, my brother had salmonella once but he is a vegetarian, I don't remember where it came from but it wasn't meat.

does anybody else have a problem with people just leaving bread crumbs all over the counter. i googled and didn't see that cockroaches are here in germany but still what's with leaving bread crumbs all over the counter. i'm not a clean freak but i definately don't want any more bugs in the house. damn spiders man, they are killing me. but its like a contest with some people in the house to make the biggest mess of the bread crumbs in the kitchen as possible. grr!!!

If you handle food properly as soon as you get it home and right after leftovers have cooled down, you have far less chance of eating something that's off. I'd rather be safe than sorry. I also find food left overnight on the stove to be a disgusting sight in the morning. Whether it's edible or not isn't the issue.