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10-06-2006, 06:24 PM
|  | ChefTalk Supporter / ChefTalk Book Reviewer Culinary Experience: Cook At Home | | Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Bellingham, WA
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| |  safety of cutting away mold
I just read somewhere that cutting mold off of bread doesn't necessarily make it safe to eat. The mold can have tendrils ( my word; I don't remember what the article called them  ) that reach out into the texture of the bread, beyond the surface greenish-whitish stuff. Does the same go for cheese? Since the texture of cheese is so much more dense, I figured whatever looked uniformly white or yellow after the mold was cut away should be OK to eat. Is that just dumb? 
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Emily |
10-06-2006, 06:26 PM
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I believe the rule of thumb is that if the food is of the hard variety, one can cut away mold, but it if is of the soft variety, it is not. Bread is soft, so I wouldn't try it. |
10-06-2006, 08:20 PM
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I think I remember hearing something about making sure to trim an inch or so around the mold...
Don't know. I do it with hard cheeses sometimes if it's just a little spot or so...bread, I usually throw it out.
Bread is cheap just go buy more. |
10-06-2006, 08:32 PM
|  | ChefTalk Moderator Culinary Experience: Culinary Instructor | | Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Canada
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I remember reading somewhere that bread mold was the most dangerous one, and cheese mold the least dangerous. While most food safety training programs say that cutting an inch of cheese is not sufficient (suggesting throwing the whole thing out), the Cheese Guild I'm taking a course from says it is and that's good enough for me. |
10-06-2006, 10:12 PM
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In science we experimented, bread mold spores travel, spores on hard cheeses, like cheddar etc. do not. I have for 20 years cut, wash knife (after children) cut again. |
10-07-2006, 02:01 AM
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Agreed.
ANY sign of mold on bread, THROW IT OUT!! (I still have horrible memories of my violent reaction to bread mold in college. Good thing there was a metal trash can in the bathroom. That's all I'll say about it.)
On hard cheese, cut it off an enjoy. |
10-07-2006, 06:42 AM
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if you have to throw out cheese with mold, then what about gorgonzola!?! I think i read somewhere that it's not the medium (bread or cheese) but that it's the type of mold that tends to grow on bread or cheese, which is different. (bread mold is fluffy, probably a different plant than the flat green kind on cheese, or so it would seem. To be sure, wait for the replies of some of the more informed on this forum. |
10-07-2006, 07:19 AM
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And I always thought penicillin came from bread mold!
And in the middle ages when the rye got mold, people got St. Elmo's Fire. After they got sick, they clustered in the abbies where the priests ate the more expensive wheat bread, and they all got well. Something of a miracle! 
doc |
10-12-2006, 05:57 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Cheri  In science we experimented, bread mold spores travel, spores on hard cheeses, like cheddar etc. do not. I have for 20 years cut, wash knife (after children) cut again. | Like Cheri, several of you mentioned that hard cheeses were OK to use after the mold was cut away. What about soft cheeses?
By the way, thank you all for your responses. I guess I just got lucky the times I cut the mold off bread .
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Emily |
10-13-2006, 01:01 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by deltadoc And I always thought penicillin came from bread mold!
doc | I just can't resist telling this story. Being a messy person, I particularly like it. I think i read this in high school, in some book called ? microbe hunters? or something like that.
The guy who discovered penicillin - Alexander Fleming I think - used to work in his basement laboratory until late at night, and his lab was a total mess. His wife often brought him dinner which he ate at his debris-strewn desk. Under the scattered papers were old dishes with food remains, which he'd forget and would be hidden from view. One day, looking for something he found a dish of boiled potatoes, and noticed the molds - some were orange, some yellow, some red, some grey, all overlapping but there was a big green mold, and around it there was a centimeter of clear space, where no molds grew, actually cutting off the circles of teh other molds with a white mold-free ring. It was penicillin of course, and he thought, hey, if this kills the other molds, it might kill other micro-organisms, made a culture in his petri dish and started experimenting. Thanks to this slob, we have penicillin. I always tell people this when they're shocked at the state of my desk. Haven;t discovered anything yet, though. Lucky if i can even find my glasses 
anyway, penicillin doesn't grow on bread.  |
10-13-2006, 06:59 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by siduri anyway, penicillin doesn't grow on bread. | Quote from "Health":
penicillin
An antibiotic that is used to treat infections caused by some kinds of bacteria. Penicillin, which is derived from a common kind of mold that grows on bread and fruit, was the first antibiotic discovered and put into widespread use.
Penicillin was first widely used during World War II.
doc |
10-13-2006, 08:48 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by siduri Thanks to this slob, we have penicillin. | 
That just strikes me the right way, that's one of the funniest lines I've heard!!!  |
10-13-2006, 09:06 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by deltadoc Quote from "Health":
penicillin
An antibiotic that is used to treat infections caused by some kinds of bacteria. Penicillin, which is derived from a common kind of mold that grows on bread and fruit, was the first antibiotic discovered and put into widespread use.
Penicillin was first widely used during World War II.
doc | ok, guess i got that one wrong. Probably one of the many molds on both. | |
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