re: Just roasted a beef tenderloin that’s been in my freezer for 5 years.

Couple of weeks ago, I cooked a pack of frozen lady peas that we put up in 2011. Found them in the freezer. Tasted just fine.

As for beef, if it's been in the freezer for a couple of years, I just cook it with some flavorful seasoning, like make birria or a jerk stew, and it's fine.

Pork doesn't retain it's flavor as long as beef, in my experience, however.

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how was their freezer still working?

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I've had my dead grandfather's freezer in my basement for the last 7.5 years. I'm pretty sure he bought it new back in the late 80s or early 90s. I haven't looked that close to find a serial number or manufactured date, but I remember getting popsicles out of it when I was at their house as a kid, and I'm in my 40s now. Those old ones were built to last.

He passed away in the spring of 2015. That Thanksgiving, we decided to have one last Thanksgiving meal in their house and spent the weekend getting it cleaned out so my mom and Aunt could sell it. We emptied anything out in the freezer that had a date on it older than a couple of years, and anything without a date. I then unplugged it, strapped it on a dolly, rolled it in the U-Haul and drove it 3 hours home with all of the other belongings to give to the rest of the family. Ran an extension cord out to it for the night before I could bring it in the next day. I enjoyed deer steaks, veggies he had grown and put away, and a bunch of other stuff in there.