Muserology Cafe

My Growing Fascination (October 2008)

by Clara Stuligross, age 16, Pennsylvania

When I was five years old, I gained the fantastic responsibility of being allowed to get food from the refrigerator by myself. With this tremendous promotion, I delved into the fridge any second I could get. Dad needed a glass of milk? I was all over it. Mom needed a slice of watermelon? Clara to the rescue! The magic box of wonder provided nothing but good for me. Every time I opened its pearly doors, a bright light illuminated my face and my eyes glittered at the opportunity before me.

Then one day, everything changed. Of course, things seemed normal at first. I was still greeted by the friendly hum and colorful labels when I opened the refrigerator door. I needed some cream cheese for my bagel, and I knew exactly where it was. I had seen Mom reach for it dozens of times—it was on the top shelf. I dragged the stool over to the fridge and stepped up. Not distracted by the whole new set of labels on this shelf, I grabbed my prize and dutifully shut the door. Knife in hand, I opened the lid of the cream cheese container, ready to slather my very own bagel with delicious spread.  However, instead of a sunshiny white cream, a dotted carpet of black fuzz blanketed the surface.

This was my first experience with mold. I rushed it over to my dad, who explained what it was. After that, I found mold popping up everywhere. I noticed that it crept up the sides of our compost bin, and devoured my sandwich when I accidentally left my lunch at home. My parents always seemed so sad to see moldy food, but I looked forward to mold sightings. My growing fascination with mold was unstoppable.

In seventh grade, I created a Mold Jar. I ran around the kitchen and threw everything in sight into the jar—pasta, dried apricots, cheese, a slice of peach, broccoli. I also included some comparison food: homemade bread and storebought bread, freshly-ground peanut butter and processed, packaged peanut butter. Within a week, a nice layer of mold had made itself at home in this cozy environment. I brought the jar in to my science teacher and we spent lunch and recess hunched over a science textbook, trying to identify the different types of mold. The peach had developed a round velvety circle of gray webby mold (identified as Rhizopus), and the homemade bread sported fancy white spots (Penicillium). The bread from the store, though, was looking as fresh as ever. The fresh-ground peanut butter had begun to separate and looked like a slug, while the store peanut butter looked almost the same, just a bit limper.

Four years later, the mold jar seems to have hit its limit. I haven’t spotted any new activity for at least a year now. With all of the food nutrients munched to their capacity, the mold wilted away and is now just a big soggy puddle on the bottom of the jar. The food is barely recognizable now, swimming around in a pool of, well, mold juice.

Just three years after the Mold Jar’s beginning, I had another experience with mold. This time, it was mold to the extreme. I needed someone to look after my  Madagascar hissing cockroaches (yes, cockroaches make great pets) during a two-week journey to Mexico, so I commissioned my neighbor to watch them. He was very squeamish about opening the cage, as I assume many people are when faced with a tank of a hundred cockroaches, so I decided to make it easy for him. I filled the cage with plenty of carrots, broccoli, and orange rinds; all he needed to do was make sure the cockroaches had plenty to drink. His job was simple: every few days, come over and give them a light mist from the squirt bottle.

My neighbor, anxious to do the best job he could, made sure the bugs were  extra-hydrated. He gave them a squirt every minute he remembered. When I returned from Mexico, I took one glance at the tank and discovered the biggest mold
experience of my entire life. With the combination of food, moisture, and warmth in the cage, it had become a breeding ground for mold (and, as it turns out, cockroaches—there were 20 babies when I returned). It was almost impossible to see through the glass tank, because it had been completely covered up by mold. It was everywhere, even on the cockroaches themselves. Being tough little bugs, they handled the situation wonderfully. My mother, however, did not. Before even unpacking the car, I was given a task: clean the cage! I lugged the heavy tank to the porch and put on some gloves before delving into Mold Central. The job, which would probably take an ordinary person under an hour, took me two. Of course, cleaning wasn’t the only thing on my agenda—I had to investigate the mold, too! The carrots had a beautiful snowy-white mold, the broccoli sported a lovely gray fuzz, and the orange peels grew a fancy brown variety.

This was my latest big mold adventure, but I look forward to seeing more mold in the future. I hope it looks forward to seeing me, too.