The Fridge

FREEZER

FRIDGE

Everyone has a fridge, it ties the whole kitchen together. It's part of the pivotal triangular balance of the working kitchen. Sink - Stove - Fridge

A persons fridge says alot about them. Their eating habits, organization skills, wealth and even knowledge, can all be obtained from a glance into their fridge.

But can you judge a person by their fridge? Maybe. But only if we all go to the fridge with the same intentions.

What can be said about my fridge? It goes through periods of feast and famine. Times when we can't fit everything in without drawing on old Tetris skills, down on our knees. With a furrowed brow we try to piece together the food puzzle a certain way so that the door can shut. Then there are times when I stand in front of it aimlessly looking at the same bottles and containers, and with a sigh I reach for the grocery list and start writing down all the things I wish I saw inside it.

Today, my fridge has reached a purge point. I know there are too many forgotten items buried in its mist. A quarter of a waffle made on a long ago Sunday. A container with half a lime and half a tomato, leftover from what, I can't remember.

The freezer however, never really gets the same treatment. It always seems to be a mess, nothing stays in there too long, but it never seems to empty. The freezer, to me, is like a cryogenic storage facility where I feel I can stop time for many food groups. Nuts and seeds, containing so much oil, I don't want them going bad or stale. Really ripe bananas are stuck in time, in their little baggies, waiting for the ultimate thaw when they will sweeten and moisten my baked goods. We rely on it, however if a freezer ever fails (we've all seen that happen) it is a mad dash to preserve the contents. With the intensity of someone trying to save the world, you fly around grabbing ice and coolers out of thin air, desperately trying to maintain the freeze.

Why are our fridges so important to us? Well we inherited the habit of using them from our parents, and them from theirs. We feel we need them, because the food we buy is designed to be stored in them. "Refrigerate after opening" is one direction followed to the letter. "Expiry date" is unbending for many people not knowing how to smell if the freshness remains. But how many things in our fridge don't even have to be refrigerated? Have we forgotten how food works? Fresh food ticks like a clock, a short count down to when it will ultimately go back to the earth. This is what it is meant to do. The older a food is or the more it is handled, the less nutrients it contains. Even chocolate has nutrients, but what Hersheys offering has so few of those nutritive properties left, than say, raw cocoa. If its in your fridge, chances are it will be in you.

A freshly laid egg left at room temperature for 1 day, is not as fresh as an egg that has been refrigerated for 1 week. Isn't that incredible? Yeah its all scientific with bacteria forming in warmer climates, yada yada. But it all comes back to that big electric box that takes up so much room in my kitchen.

I wonder if I could live without a fridge? I think I could, but where would I keep the cat food?