What's in your fridge? Or, to put it another way, what's not in it? I used to keep potatoes in the salad drawer until someone pointed out that it's not such a good idea: the chill can increase the amount of sugar present which not only affects the taste but can lead to higher levels of acrylamide, linked to some kinds of cancer, if the spuds are cooked at a high temperature.
We don't store enough leftovers, according to a new report on the UK's food waste mountain from the Waste Resources Action Programme. It proposes "greater interaction with the freezer" and says we need greater confidence and guidance around storing food.
As Meg Carter wrote in the Independent, food shoppers fall into two main categories - "chucker-outers or sniff-and-hopers." Keeping food fresh by batch-cooking and freezing, and by storing things in the most appropriate way beats sniffing or chucking every time. But what is the best way for different foods? I don't throw food in the bin (it gets eaten or composted) but I think I could do a better job of storing and preserving it.
Take bread. Many people freeze it to solve the problem of what to do if you can't finish a loaf in time. I can't stomach wet, defrosted bread (even if it's just a slightly soggy tomato sandwich) and have inherited my parents' love of the fresh stuff. They always had to hide it from my late grandfather, as he'd helpfully (he thought) put it in the freezer, every time. He meant so well they never had the heart to ask him not to. Some of my earliest memories involve sitting in my grandparents' kitchen eating defrosted bread warmed up in the oven and slathered in marmalade. I'll concede that at the time I thoroughly enjoyed it, but now I can't get my head around the idea any more than I can face freezing milk.
Mould is another divider. Ever since the time I made a sandwich, bit into it and then noticed how green the bread was, I've been wary of repeating the experience. But there are those who put jam in the fridge and those who don't mind removing a bit of fur before they eat it.
Bananas should definitely stay out of the fridge. They should even stay away from each other. I thought the Word of Mouth desk were having me on when they said you should hang them individually (mainly because they said it on 1 April) but it seems you do need to separate them as they make other fruit ripen faster, including other bananas. Tomatoes go mealy in the fridge, mushrooms turn slimy, and onions dry out and infuse everything else with oniony odours, though it's worth refrigerating them for an hour or so before cooking if you want to minimise stingy eyes.
This is all very well so long as you have somewhere else to put them - you're hardly going to put onions in a fruit bowl. If your kitchen's on the small side, you can run out of room, especially if you buy lots of bulky vegetables like potatoes and squash. I'm currently enjoying having a kitchen which is kitted out with vegetable drawers, which are dark, dry and well-ventilated, but I still keep eggs in the fridge because I don't have anywhere else to put them that's not too far out of sight and mind. If I put them in a forgotten cupboard, they'll become forgotten eggs.
I grew up thinking of butter as something you take out of the fridge before you want to use it, while my friend Helen was amazed to discover people refrigerate it at all. Do you keep yours in a dish?
What are your other food storage foibles? If you buy meat in plastic trays, do you let it sit and sweat in the fridge or transfer it to a dish with a looser covering to allow some air to circulate? Do you freeze bread or store it in a bread bin, or just in a cupboard? Lastly, are you happy to scrape mould off your food before you eat it?
