
“My wife’s 90-year-old grandmother — having lived through World War II — doesn’t believe in “best before” dates. It made eating at her house rather exciting. Sadly, she had to move to a home and clearing out her larder was as thrilling as being offered a snack. All the products here — going back decades — were, I believe, intended to be eaten.
James Kendall, “Best Before”
James Kendall’s photos of vintage (but still viable?) packaged foods, I can relate to on a personal level...
My late grandmother had a similar disinclination to discard foodstuffs. An elderly box of Nesselroad Pudding in her cupboard was an ongoing joke with my brothers and me.
Of course, in these days of reality television, all types of hoarding are undergoing a closer social scrutiny. Looking at my grandmother’s situation in retrospect, I now regret the smug superiority that we felt towards her housekeeping and her kitchen.
That certainty of ours — that my grandmother was crazy to think that anyone in their right mind would consider eating her box of Nesselroad pudding — was just a part of our being young and newly competent.
“Best before...” certainly does not constitute a drop dead expiration date. It’s more like a serving suggestion, really.
Best before or best by dates appear on a wide range of frozen, dried, tinned and other foods. These dates are only advisory and refer to the quality of the product, in contrast with use by dates, which indicate that the product is no longer safe to consume after the specified date. In spite of this, about a third of food bought is thrown away while still edible.
Wikipedia’s entry on Shelf Life
It’s easy to see why older people might want to push the envelope in this regard. It might even be an inescapable geriatric rule — that as we get older, the food from our kitchen will become increasingly less appetizing to our children. Whether this will be due to failing eyesight, financial hardship or simply our own declining standards of “freshness” is hard to say. Maybe all of the above.

Even if our children become freegans, their food will certainly be fresher than the food in these photos. But so what? Assuming the meal worms and pantry moths have not beaten you to that box of pudding mix: just dust off the top and you’re good to go.
If we can set aside our personal judgments about the “freshness” of packaged products, the importance of packaging in the lives of pensioners becomes more obvious...
(Why packaged food is preferable to home-cooked, after the fold...)
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