Concept
Warmed-Over Flavour
Also known as WOF, Warmed-over flavor, Warmed-over flavour
The stale, cardboard-like off-flavour that develops quickly in cooked meat once it is chilled and held.
Warmed-over flavour is the flat, stale, cardboard taste of cooked meat that has sat a day in the fridge. Cooking releases iron from the muscle pigment and disrupts the cell membranes, which sets the delicate membrane fats oxidising fast, so the off-flavour appears in hours or days rather than the weeks raw fat might take. Nitrite is notably good at holding it back, one of the quiet reasons cured cooked meats keep their flavour better than uncured ones, and antioxidants, vacuum packaging and cold all help.