Preserved lemons & limes

I have had a quart each of lemons and limes that I preserved in salt years ago....... I mean like 25 years ago. They were on the back of a pantry shelf and forgotten for obviously a long time. They are brown and gelled which is normal from what I've read. There is nothing that looks like mold or anything else unsightly growing in there with them. They smell good and they taste good, though I haven't tasted more than a 1/4 t just to play it safe. I figure as long as they taste & smell good, and if a tiny bit doesn't seem to harm me, they should be okay.  I just hate to toss them as I consider them like a fine aged wine that just improved with age. Am I being stupid to think that? What do you all think?

I did exactly the same thing except that I unearthed them after only ten years in the pantry when we were moving house. They were fine and no one got sick! I had lemons with cardamom and limes with chile flakes and only the texture suffered.

Thanks Christopher... the feeling is (was) mutual I guess.

Mine's only a year or two old but yesterday I made a yummy butter for the asparagus that is currently coming up. Butter and a little olive oil, salted lemons with easy seeds removed, and garlic, in the mixie. Yum! I'd do it with your old lemons if they still taste and smell good.

I've decreed that they are wonderful and worth using. I put the entire contents into the food processor and blended it into a smooth paste. If it were a little more red colored it is highly reminiscent of Umeboshi plum paste which I've always enjoyed in minute quantities due to the salt content.

I've got a jar of salt-cured limes (or were they orange lemons??) under my sink that's been there for years....
Every once in a while I pull one out when someone's got a sore throat. We mash it up in hot water or, even better, mix it with some sort of bubbly-- the "traditional" way is with Sprite, but nowadays I use it with mineral water. It's refreshing and your paste would probably mix up well with it!

I had some that were about a dozen years in the jar. Brown and jelled like yours. I used them occasionally but mostly I had been ignoring them.
I did some internet searching, but it wasn't very encouraging. Most recipes you can find talk about six months or less.
I finally found some Asian recipes that say don't even think about using them until they're ten years old. So that was reassuring.
Then they were noticed by a Thai-American friend. She recognized them and loved them, so I gave her a jar and made a bunch of new ones to use next decade.
I did one batch with paprika and bay leaves and one with cinnamon. By time I used them you could barely tell the difference. I think spices are more important if you're using them fresher.
One half-used jar did get odd. Looked funny and didn't smell right. I concluded it had rotted and got rid of it.