The Important Question You Should Ask At Your Grocery Store Deli

Your supermarket or grocery store's deli department can make the difference between an afternoon spent making potato salad for a cookout and one spent actually enjoying said event. The convenient counter lets you skip all that chopping, boiling, and dressing in lieu of ordering up a few scoops and getting back to the business of having fun. But unlike whatever you might have whipped up at home, you won't immediately know how long all those festive foodstuffs have been sitting around. So you really need to ask when they were opened or otherwise prepared.

Most grocery store delis are expertly cleaned and maintained, with best ingredient practices to match. Businesses have reputations to maintain, plus there are federal food safety guidelines for delis and similar operations. But even if a certain item is supposed to be sold within, say, five days, you might not want to bring it home when it's rounding four, especially if you're not planning on eating it for another day or two. It may sound intimidating to engage so boldly with the person working the deli counter, but remember they're there to answer your questions. Knowing the shelf life of a certain side allows you to be more flexible with your picnic contributions.

In the worst-case scenario, expired foods can make you sick — or worse. When you buy something mass-produced by a big brand and packaged in an individual container, it'll be stamped with that all-important deadline, so you can pick or pass before you even get to the register. But those mountains of cold, often mayo-based accompaniments are unmarked on the consumer-facing side. So you need to rely on the word of the person behind the glass for answers.

Beyond the potential tummy troubles, older foods just won't taste as good. Sometimes you can tell what's been sitting out a while just by looking; maybe the finely shredded cabbage in that slaw, for example, is starting to wilt. But it's not always obvious. Even a day can cause a significant quality change, and make your newly acquired goods taste more like leftovers past their prime.