Meat Cake

Make sure to check the UPDATE at the end of this post!

Have you ever looked at something in your refrigerator and not known what it was?  That is what Dear Hubby calls “Meat Cake”.   It usually smells and you aren’t sure if it’s worth it to keep the container or if you should just throw it out--food and all!

Then there are the times that there is a SMELL in the fridge and have to clean it out to find what the bad smell is.  That’s when you find all the meat cakes and old veggies that you forgot about.

We have been having one of those “SMELLAVENTURES”.

For the last 6 weeks, there has been a distinct and ugly odor whenever we opened the fridge door.

So I cleaned.

I threw out anything that MIGHT resemble a meat cake.

I cleaned, again.

And again!

And again!!

Baking soda did nothing for this smell. . .

I tried using water.

Then I tried vinegar.

Even opening the windows didn’t lessen the impact!

Then we took the back off to see if there was some kind of help there.   There were only dust bunnies inside by the motor—which I vacuumed out after we unplugged it.   But when we moved it, I was kind of thinking that there might be a dead something under it.    But no--it was so clean under there and just had a couple of dust bunnies.   At least I felt good about something.

Now we were at the point where the smell was invading ANTHING THAT WASN’T SEALED.   

Plastic wrap or foil didn’t cut it.

I mean sealed!!  

It plays with your head to bite into a wonderful leftover chocolate pie and find out it tastes like “That Smell”!

We started to dread it whenever someone opened the fridge door. It didn’t matter where you were in the apartment- you smelled it! And no room deodorizer disguised it. No candle helped lessen the impact. I was beginning to worry that someone would open that door when company was here and then I would see their faces turn green as they hurried to leave.

I began wondering how many Tupperware/Rubbermaid/Ziploc items I should buy so we could use the fridge and actually eat the food that was kept in it. I was figuring how many large sizes I would need and should I put the veggies in sealed bags or in something else.

Then one day I noticed the refrigerator pickles I made a while back. I wanted to taste them and see how they turned out. So I moved everything and brought out the gallon jar filled with cucumber spears that I had made into pickles.

That’s when it hit me.  The SMELL wasn’t in the fridge anymore--it was on the counter!   The gallon jar had not been sealed, just had a lid on that didn’t seal.   I asked Dear Hubby if he smelled THE SMELL.   Yes—what was it?   So I confessed!   It was my fault.   Poor guy—he doesn’t even like pickles!

After the pickles had been out for about 10 minutes—there was no more smell INSIDE.   Now I had to figure out what to do with the gallon jar.   So I tested one of the small pickles, it tasted fine.   I left the jar on the counter while I waited to see if I was going to be sick or not.  I felt fine.

After an hour, we couldn’t stand having the smell throughout the house all the time.   They were a little vinegary!   So I got two layers of plastic wrap and held that on with a rubber band before I put the lid back on.   Then with a sigh, I put it back in the fridge.




The plastic wrap didn’t help.   What was I going to do with them?    If I put them in a Tupperware/Rubbermaid container, the container would always smell that way.     It was time to make a decision.   I put it off and let the jar sit on the counter for a while.   The pictures will tell you what I finally did.

So far, I haven’t smelled them again!

So far!!!

UPDATE:  The smell came through the ziploc bag!  Does anyone need pickles TODAY?  Come get them.  NOW!!!

Moral of the story:  Do not use any extra vinegar in your refrigerator pickles!