A great deal of what's in your fridge absolutely does NOT need to be there. If you're interested in trying this, just start by taking all these things out of your fridge, and putting them in a pantry type situation:
Butter/margarine - shelf life about 2 weeks
Eggs -shelf life at least a week
Cheese - keep covered, shelf life variable- taste when unrefrigerated hugely better
ketchup/mustard - shelf life - forever
honey - shelf life - forever
onions/garlic - shelf life - 2 weeks
tomatoes - shelf life - 4 days
cabbage - shelf life - 1 week
cooking oil - shelf life - months
peanut butter - shelf life - months
Of course, for most folks—and that includes us—the list of refrigeratables goes beyond milk and meat. Here's how we dealt with other common edibles:
Fresh fruits and vegetables, in our experience, tend to keep very well without refrigeration. In fact, some fruits (cit rus, apples, and others) require no chilling at all. Grapes will store for quite some time if their stems are placed in wet sand.
Lettuce leaves, we've learned, remain fresh when their stems are submerged in a little water at the bottom of a jar or container. Even whole heads of lettuce can be kept this way (a head is set on top of a water-filled glass so that its stem just touches the water). Okra, carrots, greens—in fact, most anything with a stem—will keep well in water much the same way that flowers stay fresh when arranged in a filled vase. Once again, for what it's worth, we allow only the tips of the stems to touch the liquid.
From a family of pot-makers, Mohammed has made ingeniously simple use of the laws of thermodynamics to create the pot-in-pot refrigerator, called a Zeer in Arabic.
Here’s how it works.
You take two earthen pots, both being the same shape but different sizes, and put one within the other. Then, fill the space between the two pots with sand before pouring water into the same cavity to make the sand wet. Then, place food items into the inner pot, and cover with a lid or damp cloth. You only need to ensure the pot-in-pot refrigerator is kept in a dry, well-ventilated space; the laws of thermodynamics does the rest. As the moisture in the sand evaporates, it draws heat away from the inner pot, cooling its contents. The only maintenance required is the addition of more water, around twice a day.
To give an idea of its performance, spinach that would normally wilt within hours in the African heat will last around twelve days in the pot, and items like tomatoes and peppers that normally struggle to survive a few days, now last three weeks.One thing we did have was a cellar. Dad dug a hole some four feet deep and about the size of a small room, built walls another foot or two higher with rock or slabs, placed beams and more slabs across the top, and covered the whole thing with dirt (except for the sloping entrance, which was protected by an inclined door). Our home canned goods, vegetables, butter, and milk were kept there, and they always stayed cool in summer and free from frost in winter. Apples came from the underground storage area crisp and juicy.
The cellar was a great convenience, of course, but at various times of our life on the farm we made do with simpler arrangements. Once Dad made a trapdoor in the porch and dug a hole underneath about two and a half by four feet, and deep enough to hold a roughly constructed box. During the summer months, we'd put our milk and churning cream in covered pails which we wrapped in wet cloths and lowered into the "cooler". Then we'd pour water into the box and let it drain out through the seams, so that the container and the surrounding soil were kept moist at all times. The under the porch system worked very well.
There is certainly some things to think about with all I've been reading this morning. I'm probably not going to freeze very many eggs. We'll make up plenty of noodles, pound cake and some Angel Food cakes for the freezer. Much more appealing than little baggies of golden yellow liquid, I think.
I don't know that I could go cold turkey without the fridge. I could go cold turkey without a lot of things around here, but I don't know about the fridge. I'm rather attached to it. I drink water, but I'm terribly addicted to my sweet tea still. I'm working on that. And those ice cubes...it's just not the same to pull them from a bag. I'm spoiled, I know.
Then there's Dewey. I don't know that he'd totally go for the idea of no fridge. A life time of doing things one way make for harder changes you know. Foods belong in the fridge. Left-overs belong in the fridge. There are simply certain rules I've grown up with over my 40 years, and many of them include a refrigerator.
But I love these articles. I love the idea of knowing I can manage perfectly well, actually better in many cases, doing things the 'old fashioned' way. Milk is a poor way to collect calcium, so going without the gazillion jugs in the fridge might not hurt at all. Cheeses and such that we can adjust to, as well. I've kept eggs (my farm fresh, not store-bought) out on a counter for a short time without issue as well. I guess I could get out the shovel and dig a small cellar. Would be nice to have one anyway.
Then again, in the back of my mind, I picture Ann-with-an-e, standing in Marilla's cupboard, looking at the mouse floating there in that crock..... :::shudder::: see the evils of watching television?
Sources of Notes here:
Make Do Without a Refrigerator
A Refrigerator that Runs Without Electricity
Little Blog in The Big Woods....no refrigerator for 30 years
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