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How refrigeration changed our food

nytimes.com

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Re: How refrigeration changed our food

#41

Post by b112 »

nottorp wrote: post #4

Hmm isn't frozen food - even veggies - very close in content to fresh food? The real problem being not how the veggies are stored on their way to us, but how they're grown industrially?

Not how they are grown, but when they were harvested.

Ripe tomatoes are more delicate than underdeveloped, still green tomatoes. So pick them before done developing, ship them, and they'll turn red in the weeks it takes to get to the store.

And if they are picked ripe, they'll also go bad before they even get to shelf via their weeks long boat journey.

That's why local is better, and your own garden better still.

Re: How refrigeration changed our food

#42

Post by mytailorisrich »

theodric wrote: post #12

> we have lost “diversity and deliciousness" I sincerely doubt that the chilled stock in a local Irish supermarket makes my food options LESS diverse than they were a century ago. Grapes, blueberries, strawberries everywhere at any time of year, frozen fish from halfway around the planet, frozen pizzas, even ice cream for God's sake. Perhaps the cucumbers are worse, but I can always get them, and don't have to suffer…

Perhaps the diversity lost is the one caused by seasonality. Fruits and vegetables are highly seasonal, some meat and fish are, too.

From reading various articles, apparently there really was greater diversity in vegetables, too. Nowadays people eat tomatoes, salad, onions, perhaps carots, and that's about it but there are many, many more that can be locally grown and that have almost disappeared from many people's diets. If you mention swedes, turnips, cabbage, beetroots, leeks, rhubarb, types of squash, etc. even cauliflowers to many people they won't be able to tell you when was the last time they ate or touched one. The only time people touch a pumpkin is at Halloween and they don't eat them.

Regarding meat, offal has almost completely disappeared, and I suspect seafood is now mostly processed fish from one or two species only.

Re: How refrigeration changed our food

#43

Post by magicalhippo »

MichaelRo wrote: post #13
magicalhippo wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A friend started growing vegetables, and I got some as a gift at the end of the season. Just regular stuff like potatoes, carrots, celery root, parsnip and such. Now when I got them I was very busy, so they sat in a cool and dark place for a couple of weeks before I had time to use them. First thing I did was make a simple vegetable soup using only the vegetables I got from her, and it completely blew me away with th…

Yeah well, my parents have a garden of some 1000 square meters (a quarter acre) and lemme tell ya, there's a lot of stuff you can grow on that area. Obviously as a kid I couldn't escape being sent to attend the garden and saying I wasn't a fan of that is an understatement. Unless you do it as a hobby it's not a pleasant activity. In fact nowadays I use it to form a mental image on the enthusiasm that today's kids hav…

Yeah she spent a lot of time on her small plot, and the result was essentially just a handful of meals.

Gave me a newfound appreciation for how much work growing crops is.

Re: How refrigeration changed our food

#44

Post by schwartzworld »

xaldir wrote: post #36
nottorp wrote: post #4

Hmm isn't frozen food - even veggies - very close in content to fresh food? The real problem being not how the veggies are stored on their way to us, but how they're grown industrially?

It's better than days old refrigerated food, but not equivalent to freshly picked. I grow beans in my garden. French beans and broad beans are quite good frozen, perhaps amongst the vegetables that tolerate the freezer the most. Very happy to have those out of season. But there is no comparison possible with the fresh stuff.

Texture and flavor may suffer, but nutritionally, there is no real difference between fresh or frozen. And in the winter, frozen is sometimes the better choice as they are frozen at the peak of readiness.

Re: How refrigeration changed our food

#45

Post by apercu »

magicalhippo wrote: post #10
nottorp wrote: post #4

Hmm isn't frozen food - even veggies - very close in content to fresh food? The real problem being not how the veggies are stored on their way to us, but how they're grown industrially?

A friend started growing vegetables, and I got some as a gift at the end of the season. Just regular stuff like potatoes, carrots, celery root, parsnip and such. Now when I got them I was very busy, so they sat in a cool and dark place for a couple of weeks before I had time to use them. First thing I did was make a simple vegetable soup using only the vegetables I got from her, and it completely blew me away with th…

We garden a lot, and buy shares and volunteer for local farming co-ops.

We don’t save any money this way but we eat better and feel more self sufficient.

This year will be my first crop of sweet corn :)

Re: How refrigeration changed our food

#46

Post by theodric »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #42
theodric wrote: post #12

> we have lost “diversity and deliciousness" I sincerely doubt that the chilled stock in a local Irish supermarket makes my food options LESS diverse than they were a century ago. Grapes, blueberries, strawberries everywhere at any time of year, frozen fish from halfway around the planet, frozen pizzas, even ice cream for God's sake. Perhaps the cucumbers are worse, but I can always get them, and don't have to suffer…

Perhaps the diversity lost is the one caused by seasonality. Fruits and vegetables are highly seasonal, some meat and fish are, too. From reading various articles, apparently there really was greater diversity in vegetables, too. Nowadays people eat tomatoes, salad, onions, perhaps carots, and that's about it but there are many, many more that can be locally grown and that have almost disappeared from many people's d…

> swedes, turnips, cabbage, beetroots, leeks, rhubarb, types of squash, etc.

Perhaps this is a U.S. issue. Every single one of these is available at my local Lidl supermarket (~a marginally upscale Aldi for those outside Europe) for much of the year, not to mention other more starkly seasonal things that filter in like peaches, salsify, runner beans, cherimoya (a tropical fruit), and so on. Across Europe I've had no trouble getting all the offal I'd want: head cheese/zult, haggis, black pudding, balkenbrij, hearts, various horrors suspended in aspic-- in supermarkets. Not specialist shops, not the butcher. I'm in rural Ireland now, but the selection was better yet when I lived in Switzerland and NL and also shopped at Lidl.

Re: How refrigeration changed our food

#47

Post by mytailorisrich »

theodric wrote: post #46
mytailorisrich wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps the diversity lost is the one caused by seasonality. Fruits and vegetables are highly seasonal, some meat and fish are, too. From reading various articles, apparently there really was greater diversity in vegetables, too. Nowadays people eat tomatoes, salad, onions, perhaps carots, and that's about it but there are many, many more that can be locally grown and that have almost disappeared from many people's d…

> swedes, turnips, cabbage, beetroots, leeks, rhubarb, types of squash, etc. Perhaps this is a U.S. issue. Every single one of these is available at my local Lidl supermarket (~a marginally upscale Aldi for those outside Europe) for much of the year , not to mention other more starkly seasonal things that filter in like peaches, salsify, runner beans, cherimoya (a tropical fruit), and so on. Across Europe I've had no…

I should have mentioned that I am in the UK.

Many of them tend to be available in supermarkets, though it varies by location, but, really it's only older people who buy them.

That said, coming from the continent myself, the UK is below average. For an island the general lack of a variety of seafood is especially stricking.

Re: How refrigeration changed our food

#48

Post by pazimzadeh »

userbinator wrote: post #6

The home refrigerator is barely a century old When the article was written, it turned 110: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOMELRE I somewhat follow the vintage refrigeration community (owning a mid-30s Frigidaire myself) and still believe this is the only one of them known to be in existence today: https://www.coolingpost.com/features/ashrae-displays-first-e...

Any discussion of the history of refrigeration needs to mention the yakhchāl (~2400 years old)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakhchāl

Re: How refrigeration changed our food

#49

Post by mschuster91 »

> Commercial produce today is both less flavorful and markedly less nutritious than what our great-grandparents ate. Outside a home garden or a farmer’s market, the modern consumer can’t taste truly fresh produce. In our pursuit of endless abundance, Twilley explains, we have lost “diversity and deliciousness.”

Yup. Turns out, the varieties that do best in climate controlled greenhouses aren't the ones that have much going on in terms of flavor.

Thankfully at least in Germany there still are farmers' markets, and in Croatia any small town will have a daily one - and the difference is night and day, even compared to German farmers.

Re: How refrigeration changed our food

#50

Post by omnee »

I can't emphasize this strongly enough. Recently, I had the pleasure of eating at a fine dining restaurant that grows a number of vegetables and herbs, and they presented an amuse bouche with a number of raw vegetables and herbs for us to taste. Their flavours were so elevated compared to the usual counterparts that I get from supermarkets, that I questioned whether any artificial addititives were used - obviously not. The difference is like going from being short sighted but able to complete daily activites with some difficulty, to wearing glasses that makes everything crystal clear and easy.
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