excellent condiment list WM!
WickedMojo said:
Examples of Condiments that don't need to be put in the fridge..
1. Mustard-
Shelf life: 2 months
As long as the mustard doesn't contain fruits or vegetables, it has enough acid in it as a preservative. Yellow, Dijon, or even whole-grain can be put away in the cabinet for up to two months.
2. Ketchup Shelf life: 1 month
If you use ketchup often, do as restaurants and diners do — just leave it out. Ketchup can be kept unrefrigerated for up to one month, but if you don't think you'll finish the bottle in that timeframe, it's best to keep it in the refrigerator.
3. Fish Sauce Shelf life: 2 to 3 years
Fish sauce already has a long production and fermentation time, and it will sit just fine unrefrigerated. It may continue to ferment a bit and change slightly in flavor, but it is still safe to eat.
4. Soy Sauce Shelf life: 1 year
Just like fish sauce, soy sauce is fermented and does not need to be refrigerated unless you are keeping it for more than one year.
5. Hot Sauce Shelf life: 3 years
most commercially bottled hot sauces can sit around for a few years — just make sure it is vinegar-based with no fruits etc. Again, the color may change, but it won't spoil.
1-mustard- been around for eons, way before refrigeration was a thang. formulated to survive non-refrigerated with vinegar-
2- ketchup- see above....tomatoes and vinegar both have low pH which helps for unrefrigerated shelf life....
3-fish sauce....been around for centuries, unrefridgerated
4- soy sauce------same as #3........
#5 hot sauce---- NEW INDUSTRY!!! yes, there are the hot sauce classics that have been around for eons like tabasco, tapatio, hoy fong, la Victoria, Cholula, etc....and those all have enough acidity or low enough pH by fermentation to make them OK to be left out on the table, under the palapa, under the blazing Baja sun, on the beach....for months and months.....
New sauces are not made to withstand those extreme long term non-refrigerated environments!!! Well, maybe SOME are, but there are many that won't stand up to those extremes!!! Just because it says "hot sauce" on the label, don't expect it to have the same properties as Melinda's or Frank's.
In the situation of the Secret Aardvark sauce that exploded because I did not follow the listed "refrigerate after opening".....That bottle was on our counter for about 3 days in the summer. What if someone had eaten that sauce on day 2??? Which I'm sure was a swamp of Nasties brewing up on my kitchen counter.....!!!
While a lot of the classic sauces can be safely left out on the counter for months, are you willing to risk getting sick by leaving a sauce on the counter when it says to refrigerate? Especially if it is from a newer sauce company that formulated it's recipe based on current processing standards that dictated "refrigerate after opening"? And by newer, I'm talking about a company that's started up in the last 20 years,
where refrigeration is expected when it is listed on the label.
It comes down to buyer responsibility. If the sauce says to refer and you don't, if someone gets sick or dies from eating the spoiled sauce.... YourBadSoSad.....:shrug:
SL