Quote:
Originally Posted by SquarePegGuy
Amen to @ BeyondtheRainbow. If we're allowed a third convenience, I'd add refrigeration.
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My grandmother grew up without fridges and her own mother (she died long before I was born) would put perishables in woven sacks and suspend them from a window during winter months. She also reboiled soups to kill bacteria, every day.
Obviously, we had refrigerators, but my grandmother was still in the habit of reboiling a pot of soup every morning. And she would refry leftover fried foods. All of it made the taste and texture of fried-and-refried food horrible, but it was impossible to talk her out of her ingrained habit. She appreciated having a fridge and she did not suspend perishables in woven sacks from windows during cold months, but she reboiled and refried leftovers.
I do not know how they kept perishables during warm months. Probably kept them in cellars dug deep under houses.
I should add to your list SquarePegGuy: MODERN fridges. The fridges I grew up with required maintenance. They had to be regularly defrosted. That meant everything was taken out, the fridge unplugged, water that would accumulate regularly collected and thrown away, then the whole thing washed, wiped dry, and plugged back in. What I remember from this laborious procedure was that my grandmother would keep butter inside a bowl of cold water to keep it cold while the fridge was being defrosted.
My aunt would also shout at me if I left the fridge door open for an extra split second when taking something out, such as milk. The idea was that you minimize the time the fridge is open. This is probably still a good idea from the energy preservation standpoint, but I live alone now and can afford keeping the door open when I take a half-gallon of milk out, pour from it, and put it back in, and nobody says a word. So I do that, enjoying the freedom to do whatever I please. Perhaps I should stop doing that.
And regarding pasteurized foods, @
Nammu: we had pasteurized milk in the city but had to boil raw milk that was sold in the countryside. It actually changes taste if you boil and then cool it down.