On Thu 28 Apr 2005 09:20:51p, Adam Preble wrote in rec.food.cooking:

> Tim923 wrote:
>> I notice some people sell unopened soda bottles and cereal boxes from
>> past decades (1950s thru '80s for example).
>>
>> Although many don't want to try eating or drinking them, and the
>> sellers recommend not to, is the food still good.
>>
>> Could a cereal box packed away for 20 years still be good? Thanks.
>
> It's not what you mentioned above, but your post reminded me of a
> segment on the History Channel where somebody opened up a WW2 K-ration
> on TV. The cigarettes and some other things still looked OK. The meat,
> OTOH, came out as a pile of dirt.

Back in the late 1950s or early 1960s on the tv show "I've Got a Secret",
the secret was that the panel had been served pieces of mincemeat pie made
from mincemeat that was over 100 years old. Apparently, the mincemeat had
been discovered in the cellar of an 18th century building in NYC. It was
used to bake a pie to serve for this purpose. The panelists deemed it
quite edible.

--
Wayne Boatwright *¿*
____________________________________________

Give me a smart idiot over a stupid genius any day.
Sam Goldwyn, 1882-1974