Do YOU know where you're supposed to store fruit & veg?

[gardening_gal]

Turns out I didn't.

All my adult life I have apparently been storing things wrongly. For example, potatoes were always kept in the big drawer at the bottom of the fridge, tomatoes on a top shelf in the fridge etc etc. I think I just automatically followed what my Mum did.

It seems that you shouldn't keep potatoes in the fridge as the starch turns to sugar. I expect that's probably reasonably well known but I didn't know it.

I've been trying to streamline things lately and change furniture and storage in order to make daily life generally more 'user friendly' and in the process I've found out just where things should go. I now have my potatoes and certain fruits and veg in mesh drawers in a thing on wheels and it's so much better (for the veg as well as being easier to get to and use).

That got me wondering, are you all 'correct storers' or should I make space on the 'doing it wrong' bench with me?

[Small pumpkin]

There's quite a lot of stuff that lasts better or taste better if not keep in the fridge. I never keep home grown tomatoes in the fridge it ruins the flavour ( there is sciency stuff behind it but that's the basics) shop brought one I'm not fussed either way, because there's a fairly high chance they've been in a chiller somewhere along the line. . Never kept spuds or carrots in the fridge ( generally because there's to much mud on them ). This year I've learnt that courgette last a lot longer if not kept in the fridge. I don't keep eggs in their either.

[scarey55]

I don't know if I am a 'correct storer' but I surprised my friends the other day in Ikea when I bought 2 big paper bags for 10 cents each once I had done all my shopping! I use them to store my onions in, I read somewhere that onions and potatoes should never be stored together (something I always used to do). Since keeping them separate and in a paper bag, I haven't had any go bad on me

I also don't keep my eggs in the fridge but I think I might be preaching to the converted on that one

[veggiechicken]

My fridge is too full of yellow stickered stuff for spuds & carrots!
Mostly dog meat and dairy produce with the occasional cream cake
Tomatoes stay out but eggs are in I'm convinced that If I left them out I'd break them all somehow

[Snadger]

My tatties are left in the ground and dug when required, but I also have a few cardboard boxes full at the allotment which I pillage if the ground is too wet or frozen.
Eggs only brought home as required and NOT stored in fridge.Carrots and onions stored in bag attached to kitchen door handle!

[lmayhow]

I keep my onions and potatoes in bags in a basket in my kitchen, eggs out some vegetables in the fridge people are discussing out may have to revisit that

Banana's were my thing I never realised that had to kept separate from all other fruit so brought a banana tree/hook things for them and now the other fruit doesn't go so bad so quickly!!

[gardening_gal]

Oh my, it seems like I'm going to be 'Billy No Mates' on the bench by myself then.

I'm just surprised I reached the grand old age of *cough* 29 *cough* (probably could also add a splutter onto that too) without knowing how best to store things.

[gardening_gal]

Banana's were my thing I never realised that had to kept separate from all other fruit so brought a banana tree/hook things for them and now the other fruit doesn't go so bad so quickly!!

I knew about bananas! Yes! I've been salvaged!

[veggiechicken]

Oh my, it seems like I'm going to be 'Billy No Mates' on the bench by myself then.

I'm just surprised I reached the grand old age of *cough* 29 *cough* (probably could also add a splutter onto that too) without knowing how best to store things.

I could give you a few decades and take you back to the days when fridges didn't exist - or were so expensive that ordinary households couldn't afford one. Houses were so cold too, without central heating and veg rotted from damp, not heat.
I feel very old now

[gardening_gal]

I could give you a few decades and take you back to the days when fridges didn't exist - or were so expensive that ordinary households couldn't afford one. Houses were so cold too, without central heating and veg rotted from damp, not heat.
I feel very old now

I used to visit my aunts (2 spinster sisters who lived together) and they would keep the milk and butter etc on the outside window sill as there was no fridge. There was some sort of contraption built onto the outside wall so things wouldn't fall off (they lived in a tenement flat 3 floors up).

There was also a coal cellar in the room, this was a large floor to ceiling cupboard that had a waist high wooden front to stop the coal falling out. Only one room was ever allowed to be heated at any one time.

*Cough*, I mean my Mum would tell me about this because obviously I was but a gleam in her eye then.

[sparrow100]

Budge up gardening_gal, I apparently commit many food-storage horrors. I keep most veg in the fridge - often in a plaggy bag with a damp bit of kitchen roll to keep it crisp.

I could give you a few decades and take you back to the days when fridges didn't exist - or were so expensive that ordinary households couldn't afford one. Houses were so cold too, without central heating and veg rotted from damp, not heat.
I feel very old now

When I lived in France our student halls had no fridge (or anything else beyond 2 electric rings to be shared between 25 rooms!) so we hung stuff in bags out of the window when it was still cold. When it was hot we went shopping every day.

Norway is still very no-frills (e.g. no running water) out in the country, and my summer holidays were usually fridge-free.

[roitelet]

When I was a child in London we had no Fridge so Father dug a hole in the garden on the North side and lined it with an old biscuit tin. The deep sort that you don't see now. All the milk and butter was kept in this in the summer.

Back to the 'when I was a kid we lived in a shoe box....'

[Cadalot]

As a kid our house had a larder in the kitchen on the outside wall with a huge airbrick top and bottom and stone slabs to stack items on, storage was not a problem especially in Winter as only the front room was heated (way before central heating) If you wanted to go to your bedroom then you wore your coat, and in very cold weather the single glazed windows would ice up on the inside of the property in every room but the front room.

When we were small kids Mum would get up, light the coal fire and warm our clothes up in front so we could get up washed and dressed warm in front of the fire.

[Bigmallly]

Coal Fire?..............You were lucky...........when I were a lad:

You were lucky

[Cadalot]

Coal Fire?..............You were lucky...........when I were a lad:

You were lucky

That did cross my mind as I wrote it, but it is so true ... my kids have no idea, brought up in a centrally heated house all their life's, I've just finished watching the Victorian Slum on TV and it's truly amazing the progress in a 100 years.