Posted by John Wilson on April 21, 2001 at 13:00:47 from 202.154.130.164:
In Reply to: Re: How to Keep foodstuffs cool posted by Adam Quinan on April 21, 2001 at 12:30:00:
I think the idea of a “safe” was to keep food cool by keeping it out of the sum and in an air current or draught. The “Coolgardie (or cool) safe” used hessian or muslin sides which were kept moist, so that the evaporation of the water extracted the latent heat also (yes, Coolgardie is an Australian (WA) name!).
Apart from people who brought ice in (not common?), keeping food and milk cool and nopt “going off” must have been a common problem for households as well as campers! I suppose that most houses had a safe or pantry which was shaded and ventilated to keep it cool. This would have been important for butter, meat and fish as well as meat. Probably people did get food delivered several times a week (in PM the GA gets a lift from the butcher’s delivery van).
But the Swallows probably use tinned meat; in PM when the D’s are given a rabbit by Jacky and cook it, Nancy says in effect “why dont we live off the land like Picts, instead of opening tins” and there are plenty of Captain Flint’s tins to be dumped in WH when he arrives back unexpectedly.