Rescues · TO STORE
Herbs turn black and slimy in a few days.
Why it happens
Sealed wet. Wash, dry properly, and store loosely wrapped in a damp cloth — damp, not wet.
Recovering it
Stale bread is fully recoverable — a brief spell in a hot oven reverses starch retrogradation and it comes back nearly fresh, which is why day-old bread toasts well. Soggy fried food re-crisps in a hot oven on a rack. Freezer-burnt patches are permanently dry and are best cut away. Anything that smells wrong, or where mould has appeared on a soft or wet food, is discarded rather than trimmed: on a soft food the visible growth is a fraction of what has spread.
The mechanism
Three processes degrade food and each responds to different conditions. Microbial growth is slowed by cold, by low water activity and by acid, and effectively stopped below about −18°C. Enzymatic change continues even when microbes do not — it is why cut apple browns in the refrigerator and why blanching before freezing matters, since a few seconds of heat denatures the enzymes. Physical change is the one people forget: staling in bread is starch retrogradation, where gelatinised starch recrystallises, and it happens fastest just above freezing, which is precisely why the refrigerator is the worst place for a loaf and the freezer is fine. Moisture moves too — a crisp thing next to a wet thing in a sealed box will not stay crisp, because water vapour equalises across the container.
The full TO STORE lesson — how to tell, where to practise it, what it carries to.