Originally published at: Homeowners find well-preserved order of McDonald's fries from 1959 behind a wall | Boing Boing
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I hope that it’s period-correct Tupperware.
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Oh Yeah, collectors item!
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Silver lining: They obviously haven’t had any rodent or insect problems since 1959 either.
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and this was far before they used any preservatives (other than salt), so there.
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Must be the beef tallow that preserved it.
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I think the more interesting item is why.
I mean, who hides uneaten fries wrapped in a towel behind the wall? Did one of the carpenters take an unsanctioned lunch break?
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If they live in Crystal Lake then they have more pressing issues to deal with! 
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If only Jason’s mom hadn’t preserved him in beef tallow, he wouldn’t keep coming back. 
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When I was still in my teens, I was lucky enough to land a job as a carpenter’s mate doing renovation work in the National Portrait Gallery in London. In many ways, this was the best job I ever had.
One day, upon removing some paneling I discovered a treasure trove of ephemera including a newspaper from 1960, left there during the last renovation. I remember that the headline was about the Gary Powers U2 incident and also included in the trove was an empty 5-pack of players cigarettes.
From the perspective of a teenager in 1988, this was mind-blowing!! I felt like Indiana Jones! 1960 felt eons removed! I felt that I’d made an important archaeological discovery!
Since then whenever I’ve done any building work, I’ve always squirreled away something with the date on it for future renovators to find.
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In some belief systems, incorruptibility is sign of divine providence.
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My guess would be the bundle fell down there from above while they were building the house or doing some work in the attic above. Framers will tell you stuff falls inside walls more often that people care to admit and it’s almost never worth trying to retrieve it. Possibly someone else knocked the wrapped bundle in there and didn’t know it was food and might cause problems, so nobody ever knew.
Before the days of ziploc bags and Tupperware (and modern germophobia), wrapping your leftovers in a towel or a cloth was standard.
Most food will not go moldy or otherwise from bad sitting out, as long as humidity is low. This gets thoroughly debunked every time the “OMG McDonalds food never goes bad” FUDmeme goes around again.
If humidity is reasonably low, food dries out before mold or other problems set in. It self-dehydrates, which is the best preservative there is. It’s not a function of OMG SCARY CHEMICALS in food or anything else. Just dry air.
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Great point. Though the fats have probably gone rancid, at least on the outside of the cluster where the fries are exposed to oxygen.
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Could be worse
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Yep, and something with a lot of surface area relative to volume and coated in salt lets that humidity be a pretty wide range.
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