Pandora's Icebox: Woman Defrosts Decades-Old Food For TikTok
A TikToker cleaned out her grandparents' freezer and found an array of middle-aged produce, egg yolks, and ham broth.
What's the oldest thing in your freezer? I'm a renter, so I've never been able to keep frozen goods for more than a few years. I'm pretty sure my parents have a bag of egg noodles that's been in their freezer since my 20-year-old sister was born. But that's nothing compared to what's depicted in a recent TikTok video, in which a woman discovers a veritable buffet of frozen foods dating back to the 1970s. Newsweek reported on the clip, explaining that the TikToker cleaned out her grandparents' freezer, found a shocking array of food around 50 years old—and then defrosted it. Why did she defrost the middle-aged foods? There's no way of knowing.
The woman shared a clip to her TikTok account, captioning it: "Grandparents Freezer Discovery." She narrates the clip: "Cleaning out the in-laws' fridge. How about some blackberries for dinner tonight, from 1972. How about some strawberries from 1984, or maybe some blueberries, from 1983." (Most of the dates were marked on strips of masking tape.)
The clip garnered more than three million views, prompting the TikToker to share a follow-up video the next day after defrosting the food. In the video, she opens up each container, starting with the fruit. Upon opening the blackberries from 1972, she proclaimed, "They've lost a lot of their color. They kind of look like brains. That's bad." Meanwhile, the strawberries from 1984 seemed "kind of fermented."
Most of the frozen produce was understandably mushy and discolored, but the real treat came when the TikToker opened a container of gag-inducing ham broth, followed by a bundle of egg yolks from 1998. The yolks were so foul that they got their very own dedicated clip, captioned "13 year old eggs" with a vomiting emoji. (It's worth mentioning that the eggs are, according to my calculations, actually 23 years old.) "These are the eggs; I've just smashed one, and it's like butter," the TikToker narrates over the clip. "Literally like, butter. Some of these are solid... They smell pretty bad after being out for eight hours and after 13 years." Some secrets are better left buried in the Frigidaire.