Hi there! Hopefully this is the right place. I tried searching for what this might be and I came up with a lot of different answers.
This is a store bought can of plain tomato sauce, we were making soup. We noticed this white paste on the side of the can, when I poked it it was soft, almost like a thin fat?
Smelled fine, and the sauce looked fine otherwise. But we got nervous and threw it away, afraid of botulism or other nasties. Plus we wanted to finish cooking.
Does anyone know what this is? Some sources said it might be calcium nitrate, but they also say it would be hard and wouldn't break up in your fingers if rolled. This was a paste.
Anyway, just wondering for next time, figured you guys would know. Thanks!
I'm not sure myself, but it could be the can liner. Most cans come with a liner (commonly made of plastic) to avoid the flavor of metal leeching into the food, so that could have just been part of the liner degrading.
It's even more common for the liner to degrade from acidic foods, so it wouldn't surprise me if that was what it was.
I was wondering that too, from the first picture. There it looks like the metal under the goo is shiny, like the bare metal of the can.
OP should be able to see/feel the edge of the liner where it degraded.