<< If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. :-) My original post
specified non-rural living. People have been clumping up in cities for
millennia, far from root cellars. >>

I beg to differ, the house my father grew up in, located in Queens county, part
of New York City, had a root cellar. At the base of the cellar stairs was a
wooden door that opened into a chest high, sand floored area about three cubic
yards in volume. This area remained cool in the hottest of summers and was for
storeing vegetables, etc. Many other old houses I have been in in cities of
New Jersey have also had such root cellars in them. You couldn't get
everything into an ice box and root cellars are not just for country folk.

In article >, Frogleg
> wrote:

> On Thu, 12 Feb 2004 14:36:17 +0000, Lazarus Cooke
> > wrote:
>
> >Frogleg wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> How often do you
> >> make chicken soup
> >> immediately after preparing a meal of roast chicken?
> >
> >Almost every time I roast a chicken.
>
> Really? You prepare a chicken dinner, sit down and enjoy a nice meal,
> clear the table, and start making chicken soup while washing up? Not
> me. I *do* make stock/broth from leftover chicken, The next day, from
> the refrigerated carcass, or maybe weeks later from saved scraps and
> bones in the freezer. I never said it wasn't possible to utilize
> leftovers; only that refrigeration and freezing made it a whole lot
> easier.

Well, that's "immediately after preparing a meal of chicken" in my
book. Of cours I eat first. And I don't refrigerate the scraps while I
do so. I don't have a freezer (reasons of space, rather than
principal. But if I had the money and the space, I'd begin with a
dishwasher and get the freezer later). So I have to make the stock the
same day.
>
> >What utter ********! If you can't be bothered with this tiny amount of
> >work I'm amazed that you bother going onto a food news group. What
> >dreary meals they must have chez frogleg.
>
> Why is this attack necessary? How would you assume that I was
> "bothered with a tiny amount of work"? After a good meal, I prefer to
> heave leftovers into the fridge, do some minimal clean-up, and join
> guests or family for conversation. If your routine is to go back into
> the kitchen and construct soup, fine by me.

You don't need a fridge to make a soup. You can leave the bloody thing
there while you talk to your guests. If you had a fridge, you might put
it in the fridge, if you didn't, you might not. I remember seeing the
first fridge in our street: we - the kids - thought of it as a "machine
for making ice cubes" and we all went in to see it. If you don't have a
fridge you'll keep it in the pantry/meat safe. if you're going to make
soup from it it'll keep. No-one ever died from eating soup made from a
carcass that had sat in a pantry while the cook talked to his/her
guests.

>
> *I* am amazed at the number of people who go onto a food (or other)
> newsgroup to criticize and disparage.

Of course my response was robust. I hate being rude but if you publish
tosh like suggesting that a carcass won't wait while you chat to guests
without refrigeration, then you must expect tosh to be called tosh. You
can't publish nonsense to the whole world and expect no-one to tell you
that it's nonsense.

> not spending 4-5 hrs a day shopping and cooking and preserving. I've
> learned a few things.

Oh come off it. Do you think that's how long I spend? I even make my
own marmalade and honey but it ain't 4-5 hours a day.

You\re arguing on the world wide web. Expect world wide disagreement.
I don't want to hurt your feelings, but....

Lazarus

--
Remover the rock from the email address

In article >, Frogleg
> wrote:

> On Thu, 12 Feb 2004 17:55:46 GMT, David Friedman
> > wrote:
>
> > Frogleg > wrote:
> >
> >> How often do you seal leftovers with lard? Or make chicken soup
> >> immediately after preparing a meal of roast chicken?
> >
> >In our case, the latter is pretty standard. It's true that there is
> >often leftover chicken meat that goes into the refrigerator--but the
> >carcass goes into the soup pot. Similarly, when we are doing a medieval
> >cooking workshop, suitable trimmings tend to go into the soup pot. That
> >part isn't a lot of trouble.
>
> Sure. I grew up reading a lot of material about an ever-simmering
> stock pot on the back of the stove. Gack! What *that* must have been
> like after 3-4 days!

this is just for information, not to be rude. This is just what I do.
My fridge is so small the stockpot won't fit in.

I'll tell you what it's like. It's nice.

L

--
Remover the rock from the email address

In article >, Frogleg
> wrote:

> That is, thousands (millions,
> by some estimates) of cases of "stomach 'flu" or other home-treated
> digestive upsets are probably due to food contamination of some sort.
> When they're not serious enough to warrant a vist to Dr. or hospital,
> they go undiagnosed and do not generally become part of reliable
> statistics. 2b: serious and life-threatening cases of e. coli
> O157:H7, botulism, salmonella, etc. are rather rare.

I agree with all this (what a relief). But ,when travelling, you're
most likely to get ill from posh food. Street food (I'm thinking of
Central Asia and tropical Africa here) tends to be very safe - fried,
not kept for long. Cooked by people with no access to fridges and no
misuse of them. It's the salad or badly re-heated meal in your posh
hotel/restaurant that does for you.
L

--
Remover the rock from the email address

On Tue, 10 Feb 2004 22:19:34 GMT, Frogleg > wrote:


>Yeah, but...how many urbanites have a "cool cellar," then or now?

Well, the Goodman of Paris makes a number of references to putting
things into the cellar to cool. He was an urbanite.

>>Take a look at a household book, like that written by the Goodman of
>>Paris. (A 15th-century merchant, writing instructions for his
>>inexperienced young bride.)
>
>Ahh. Trust a man to tell a woman what to do...

It's rather sweet, really. He was an older man who had been married
before, and she was a teenager who was very conscious of her ignorance
of household matters. He also expected that she would outlive him,
and marry again. He spent quite a few pages describing how to have a
happy marriage, before continuing on to the practicalities of killling
fleas and buying geese and making mutton stew.
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/goodman.html


>Would *you* eat a rabbit that had been hanging in 85 degrees for a
>week? Outside a smokehouse, I mean.

No, but we haven't established that the temperature would be that
high. According to various sources, a properly-constructed root
cellar can maintain temperatures in the 50s (Fahrenheit) during the
summer. In any case, the point is that *they* would eat such a
rabbit.

>I guess my original point was that (obviously) people have been able
>to survive and be nourished for millennia without domestic
>refrigeration, but it's sure a lot easier today (happy dance).

I don't think anyone disagrees with that.

>We are very fortunate, foodwise.

In many ways, yes.


Robin Carroll-Mann
"Mostly Harmless" -- Douglas Adams
To email me, remove the fish

On Thu, 12 Feb 2004 01:48:46 -0500, Bob > wrote:

>
>And a lot of the taboos are wrong. There will be bacterial growth on a
>hot day with chicken salad or egg salad, but that's not from the mayo.
>It's from the other protein ingredients.

And possibly from the hands of the maker and / or server. If their
hands look clean, many people feel they are clean. They put the
chicken pieces in to fry and wipe the hands off with a towel and go
right to mixing or setting out the potato salad. We must remember the
child component, too. Let a kid get near a table with food being set
out and you're going to have hands that definitely aren't clean
grabbing at it.
--
rbc: vixen Fairly harmless

Hit reply to email. But strip out the 'invalid.'
Though I'm very slow to respond.
http://www.visi.com/~cyli

On Thu, 12 Feb 2004 13:00:59 GMT, Frogleg > wrote:

..
>
>How often do you seal leftovers with lard? Or make chicken soup
>immediately after preparing a meal of roast chicken?

I've never done the former, but sometimes do the latter. Not much
work involved. I put a big pot of water on the stove, drop all the
meat (and sometimes some of the vegetable) leftovers in it. Takes
very little longer than putting it in the trash and less time than
packaging it for the 'frig.
--
rbc: vixen Fairly harmless

Hit reply to email. But strip out the 'invalid.'
Though I'm very slow to respond.
http://www.visi.com/~cyli

On Thu, 12 Feb 2004 19:40:37 GMT, Frogleg > wrote:


>
>Sure. I grew up reading a lot of material about an ever-simmering
>stock pot on the back of the stove. Gack! What *that* must have been
>like after 3-4 days!

Delicious if done right. In fact my booya requires days of simmering.
I can do it in 48 hours if I rush it and never take it off the stove.
--
rbc: vixen Fairly harmless

Hit reply to email. But strip out the 'invalid.'
Though I'm very slow to respond.
http://www.visi.com/~cyli

On Fri, 13 Feb 2004 22:04:39 -0600, lid wrote:

>On Thu, 12 Feb 2004 13:00:59 GMT, Frogleg > wrote:

>>How often do you seal leftovers with lard? Or make chicken soup
>>immediately after preparing a meal of roast chicken?
>
>I've never done the former, but sometimes do the latter. Not much
>work involved. I put a big pot of water on the stove, drop all the
>meat (and sometimes some of the vegetable) leftovers in it. Takes
>very little longer than putting it in the trash and less time than
>packaging it for the 'frig.

You have a point there. I'm not so well-organized. :-)

*My* original point was that reliable refrigeration/freezing makes
cooking (and shopping and food storage/safety) a lot easier. I live in
a so-called 'temperate' climate where a box on the front porch would
probably serve to keep food in Jan-Feb, but would turn everything into
toxic mush in Jul-Aug.

On Thu, 12 Feb 2004 17:55:46 GMT, David Friedman
> wrote:

> Frogleg > wrote:
>
>> How often do you seal leftovers with lard? Or make chicken soup
>> immediately after preparing a meal of roast chicken?
>
>In our case, the latter is pretty standard. It's true that there is
>often leftover chicken meat that goes into the refrigerator--but the
>carcass goes into the soup pot. Similarly, when we are doing a medieval
>cooking workshop, suitable trimmings tend to go into the soup pot. That
>part isn't a lot of trouble.

My thinking is much the same. While it is obviously *possible* to eat
reasonably well and without toxic effects in the absence of modern
domestic refrigeration, it seems to me it'd be a lot more trouble.
Maybe not to heave a chicken carcass into a pot of water after dinner,
but to have to replentish 'fresh' ingredients every day or 2, and make
sure each meal was either consumed immediately or within the same 1-2
day span.

A confit may be suitable for a northern European climate, but "cool
spots" are few and far between in summer in much of the US (and
south). I would be suspicious of chicken soup/broth that was left
unrefrigerated for even a few hours.