Foodstuffs Sold In Solid Blocks Of Ice

Southland Times, Issue 23740, 11 February 1939, Page 17

Foodstuffs Sold In Solid Blocks Of Ice

The American housewife knows how to make the most of her refrigerator. Throughout the United States many kinds of foodstuffs frozen into solid blocks of ice can be bought, says a writer in The Manchester Guardian. They have only to be thawed out and they are ready for cooking. The foods sold in this way include most kinds of fruit and vegetables, meat, fish and poultry. Meats frozen immediately after slaughtering are delivered to the home in a state of ideal freshness, spotlessly clean and germ-free. There is also a great saving of labour. Everything is prepared for cooking by the wholesalers before freezing. The housewife or cook no longer has to bone and fillet, wash and clean, carve, dice and mince. The preparation of foodstuffs at home before cooking is reduced to a minimum.

There are similar advantages with fruits and vegetables. Peas and beans, for example, are shelled and washed before being frozen. They arrive with that “newly gathered” flavour all the year round. Green peas and runner

beans, strawberries and raspberries are as fresh and good and as readily obtainable in December as in midsummer. ENGLAND NOT LAGGING England is no longer behind the Americans in the use of refrigerators. Every up-to-date kitchen has its refrigerator, but little has been done as yet to provide the advantages of these frozen foods. A beginning has been made, however, and in some places frozen fruits and vegetables and frozen fish can be procured. A firm of wholesale fishmongers now hire out lowtemperature storage cabinets to their retail shops. Frozen strawberries, raspberries and asparagus are also being introduced.

The low-temperature cabinet used for storage of these foods is similar in principle to that used for ice cream. Perhaps the day is not far distant when door-to-door delivery will be effected in tricycle cabinets similar ,to those associated in our minds with “Stop me and buy one.”