Posted by Peter Ceresole on October 10, 2007 at 20:31:27 from 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.
In Reply to: Re: keeping food cool - back to basics posted by Peter H on October 10, 2007 at 18:52:50:
However, there is a problem. On the following night, before setting off for the ‘burglary', Dorothea heated up a steak and kidney pie. How long had she had that? It wasn’t in the box which Cook had sent up the day before. It wasn’t mentioned in the stores which they took to the Dogs Home from Beckfoot, nor did Cook bring it when she visited. Was it a tinned one?
Very likely indeed. Remember that this was before refrigeration became quasi-universal, and tinned steak and kidney pie was certainly an item that I remember being in the local shops when I was tiny. It's hard to see how it could have been widely sold otherwise.
Fridges weren't that available in modest homes until after the war- I remember my dad when he was an economic adviser to the three power administration in Trieste, around 1948, telling me that one of the main benefits of Coca-Cola was to have introduced refrigerators even into rural shops all over Europe.
A further food preservation point- we've had mentions of dried meat and sausage being stored for extended peoiods at room temperature, but apart from drying I think a major element of preservation was that the meat was salted. Salt was an important preservative at the time- and for centuries before that. Just like sugar- as in jam.