Things like “dry aged” steak.
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Aging, or dry aging, isn’t the same as spoiling.
Food spoils in an uncontrolled environment, left to rot with all bacteria, including bad bacteria, getting all into the food and growing, and the “bad bacteria” tends to out-compete the good bacteria in these situations, rotting the food and making them dangerous.
Humans over the course of the last 10,000-100,000+ years have figured out certain situations can actually control for bacteria, allowing *GOOD* bacteria to flourish and help in the aging process without letting the bad bacteria in. The common example of this is cheese and yogurt, which is just dairy products with good bacteria (or similar) going to work and outcompeting any small amounts of bad stuff.
In the example you gave of dry aged steak, The steak is butchered in a safe and clean environment, and cuts of beef are great for this process because the fibers of the meat are tightly packed and dense, so bacteria cannot penetrate into the whole meat as easily. This is why you can also eat fresh beef raw or rare with little danger if prepared safely, because the bacteria is only on the surface and can get killed by the sear or the acid in the case of a tartare. When you dry age, you put those cuts of steak you butchered in a clean enclosed environment safely away from bad bacteria as much as possible, in a cool and dry environment. This limits bacterial growth, and only small amounts of bacteria go to work on the meat, usually only “good bacteria” overall, and it breaks down the meat over the course of 30-50 days which helps make the meat so much more tender. Then, when you go to cook that steak, the chef will usually remove the outer-layer that may have dangerous bacterial growth, leaving a safe steak underneath in the core that you can then cook and enjoy.
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