SC - OT - freezing things

[Philip & Susan Troy]

LrdRas at aol.com wrote:
> 
> In a message dated 8/30/00 11:31:14 AM Eastern Daylight Time, nanna at idunn.is
> writes:
> 
> << http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a4_162.htm >>
> 
> That page is no longer found by my server. Would it be a problem to post the
> quote rather than sending us all over the web for a few words? :-)

I suspect you cut and pasted the URL, and lost the "l" of the "html". I
just clicked on the hyperlink in your message, and got the result you
got, but the URL in Nanna's message has an "l" at the end, and it works
just fine for me.

Anyway, here it is:


> Dear Cecil:
> 
> Why is there an expiration date on sour cream? --Al Malmberg, Colorado Springs, Colorado
> 
> Cecil replies:
> 
> Al, you nut! I mean, just spelling it out for the benefit of the slow, it's already sour, right? Unfortunately, as often happens, I'm obliged to spoil your little joke
> with the facts. Probably you have the idea that they make sour cream by taking ordinary cream and letting it sit out on the window sill for a couple hours. By
> and by somebody gets a whiff, goes, "Yo, that's sour! Ship it!" and two days later you're spreading it on a blintz.
> 
> But that's not how it works. (Surely you suspected this.) It's true they start with light cream or the equivalent. Having pasteurized it, which kills most of the
> microorganisms that make raw milk go sour, they then dump in a special bacterial culture that produces lactic acid. If I know my bacteria--and I did stand in
> line once to get tickets for a Kiss concert--they produce the lactic acid by excreting it, which you then pay to eat.  Chilling the sour cream after the bacteria
> have had 12-16 hours to do their thing halts the "ripening" (i.e., souring) process, resulting in a product that is merely tangy rather than completely rank. 
> 
> But bacterial action doesn't totally stop, and if the sour cream sits around long enough it will eventually become so sour (or moldy) that it's inedible. The same
> will happen to virtually any dairy product, since some sour-inducing microorganisms invariably survive pasteurization. Thus the expiration dates. We may
> think of sour cream, therefore, as occupying the bracingly tart if narrow interval separating the hopelessly bland from the unspeakably vile--pretty much what
> we at the Straight Dope aspire to do vis-à-vis Barney the Dinosaur and Howard Stern.
> 
> --CECIL ADAMS

This is a very entertaining site, but I can't help but think that
there's a confusing and possibly irresponsible mix of science and
whimsy. It's as if any reasonable explanations are there by accident (if
you want to know what I mean, look at the thing about the sparking Life
Savers). However, the sour cream thing seems to make sense.
 
Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com