Posted by mike stevens on April 21, 2001 at 22:46:24 from 195.92.67.69:
In Reply to: Re: How to Keep foodstuffs cool posted by John Wilson on April 21, 2001 at 13:00:47:
When I was a boy in the 1940's, all the houses that we lived in had a pantry. In the pantry was a large slab of marble which stayed cool. Standing on the marble was a 'safe' which was a box made of perforated zinc and we kept the meat and fish in this safe. It is true that it would only keep for a few days and we had to shop daily. Both the butcher and the fishmonger had fridges. Walls ice cream who used to deliver to houses would wrap a block of ice cream in newspaper and put a piece of dry ice inside. In warm weather, we used to 'scald' the milk by bringing it nearly to the boil, this would destroy any bacteria starting to grow in it and it would last another day. Also, we made more used of tinned sweetened milk known here as condensed milk. I think Ransome's preoccupation with milk stemmed from his ulcer problems. In one of his letters he mentioned that he could not go far from a friendly cow. In pracice, daily milk deliveries were the norm, I cannot recall any problems when going camping with the Scouts, probably because of the dreadful British summers. I notice that most of my French friends hardly drink milk at all. I've even seen them eat corn flakes dry.