Food glorious food

[Wuppertal]

Here's my situation (and why I'm thinking of food so much!):

I am staying in a building designed for students staying short-term (between 1 and 6 months - I'm here for 4 months in total, going home in late May). I have: no fridge and no oven. There is no kitchen in the building and no meals provided. No cooking facilities in the room. I have bought myself a kettle, and an electric hob and a saucepan and frying pan. But still, with no fridge, the choice is very limited. My warm meals consist of: various types/flavours of soup; pasta (but with very few sauces because most need refrigerating after opening); and a few frozen things to fry and eat soon after buying (such as those crispy 'pancakes' with breadcrumbs and cheese/tomato on the inside). Snacks are OK - lots of lovely fresh fruit, pies/tarts/cakes, chocolate/sweets, biscuits etc. But it's not going to sustain you like a warm and varied meal can - I lost 10% of my body weight after the first month. I gained it again after an Easter holiday of raclettes, fondue and chocolate but have probably lost it again now.

There are lots of things that I usually consume quite a lot of that I haven't so much as touched while here - milk and cheese; meat and fish. At home I'm a 6-8 cups of tea a day person, but have had to cut that back! I'm happy to drink black tea no problem but I prefer it with milk. I'm not an enormous meateater but I do love a good piece of meat or sausages and am missing that too. Sometimes I buy some smoked salmon, one of my favourite things, and eat it the minute I get back from the supermarket, but obviously that's quite expensive on a student budget. Eating out is a simple solution, but obviously that can't be done every day on the infamous student budget. I go to the pizzeria about once a week and regularly to cafés with friends but can't have a meal there every single time, usually just a gorgeous Italian coffee of some sort . I can live fine without an oven - as long as I have a fridge. I will never take a fridge for granted ever again! This afternoon I'm going back to the UK for five days and will make maximum use of this most wonderful of inventions as well as frequenting Bangor pier for its lovely scones and cups of homemade tea by the nice elderly couple that run the place; there's little better in life than some of the simplest things.

This could have gone in Phil's "just a glimpse" thread but I thought I'd leave that unspoilt for positive things rather than negative

Well that's just a picture of my nutritional life at the moment! I actually wrote this with the intention of discussing what may be people's most memorable and wonderful meals/dishes they've ever had, but it kind of turned into a rant about problems with lack of food variation and availability in a country that is famed for having such a wonderful culinary culture.

The two memories of the best food which always come to my mind automatically were both in France (perhaps unsurprisingly). One was a perfectly done guineafowl in Poitiers on a CH French trip, and the other was a cauliflower and Auvergne blue cheese soup at a dinner in my girlfriend's mum's chambre d'hôte (roughly a B&B) in the Allier in deepest rural France. Sad thing about the soup was it was in the tiniest of "bowls" - about half the size of a cup and eaten with a spoon half the size of a teaspoon. I could have eaten a saucepanfull but I don't think it would have looked good for the guests!

[Mrs C.]

Can`t you buy fresh veg , just the amount you need for the day , and cook them all in one pan or turn it into soup or something ?
What about tinned beans etc? Much healthier and sustaining than the ready made rubbish you`re having at the moment. Why not buy a few tomatoes, an onion and a pepper and make your own pasta sauce? who needs ready made sauces??
Go to the market or supermarket and just buy a small amount of meat to eat each day if it`s meat you want!
There are hundreds of things you could eat for much less money!

From the sound of your current diet you won`t last 4 months!!

I survived a whole year in Germany without a fridge and only 2 pans .
OK, so that was back in the days when Man had only just stopped hunting for his food and cooking on an open fire wearing the skin of his prey, but it is possible to eat a lot better with limited resources than it sounds as if you are!

[Katharine]

What about smoked meat? Smoking was a method of keeping food long before refrigeration. I have happy memories of an Amish Winter sausage bought from a market and used for lunches for several days when we were travelling US by trains without any catering facilities.

I should imagine that many of the older members of this forum grew up without fridges in their childhood homes - we couldn't afford one until I was in my teens. Try to find the coolest part of your room to keep your food, presumably you don't have time to shop daily it should be possible to shop every other day.

Don't expect it to be warm and sunny in Bangor - it was bitter when I was there yesterday! The day before it had been beautiful in Porthmadog so I wasn't dressed for the cold!!

[gma]

At home I'm a 6-8 cups of tea a day person, but have had to cut that back! I'm happy to drink black tea no problem but I prefer it with milk.

When you get back here, get someone to take you to Macro or Costco or any one of those monstrous discount and cafe supply shops - they sell big bags full of the tiny longlife pots that you get in motels and hotels - not as great a taste as a 'proppa cuppa' but a reasonable substitute and no need for the fridge!!

Failing making your own pasta sauces, Dolmio do a rake of stir in ones that are about twice the size of custard tart and so will do for you easy peasy! Mix the pasta up with sliced up meats like ham, or spicy sausages, nutricious and protein(ous!) inside 4 minutes! (or 15 if you're using dried pasta!!)

Have fun

[Ajarn Philip]

When you get back here, get someone to take you to Macro or Costco or any one of those monstrous discount and cafe supply shops...

Apart from Tesco (known here by its second name 'Lotus") having pretty much taken over the supermarket market (so to speak), Macro is also here in force. The world is far too small sometimes. Having said that, I'll never forget the huge sign in Tesco Lotus advertising "Sea Prams" - I dashed towards it in anticipation of seeing buggies for mermaid babies only to find vast tanks full of prawns...

Tom, this will be of absolutely no comfort to you whatsoever, but, frankly, who gives a sh1t! If you were on your uppers here you could survive quite comfortably on 2 quid a day buying (quite tasty) food from street stalls - many do. Quite frankly, losing 10% of my body fat would probably only mildly impress my doctor...

And yes, you should have put this on 'just a glimpse' - it's just what I was after!

Anyway, you'll soon be rolling in money...

Good luck

[gma]

Tom, this will be of absolutely no comfort to you whatsoever, but, frankly, who gives a sh1t! If you were on your uppers here you could survive quite comfortably on 2 quid a day buying (quite tasty) food from street stalls - many do. Quite frankly, losing 10% of my body fat would probably only mildly impress my doctor...

Ah Bless 'im, Tom, ignore him, learn from an older woman, women will feed you and nuture you as a surrogate son/lover as you choose, food in Thailand is no cheaper than France if you shop daily as per other advice, he's just trying to make you jealous of his summer off in Thailand (which I now find out is just a few days!!)

Eat , drink and be merry, for tomorrow they'll cancel your credit cards

[ben ashton]

I have: no fridge

I have bought myself a kettle, and an electric hob and a saucepan and frying pan. But still...no fridge

Buy a fridge?!

[icomefromalanddownunder]

I have: no fridge

I have bought myself a kettle, and an electric hob and a saucepan and frying pan. But still...no fridge

Buy a fridge?!

Why bother?

To keep milk cool, stand container in bowl of water. Drape cloth over container such that ends dip in water. Water ascends cloth by capillary action and cools milk due to evaporation.

Alternatively buy esky/chillybin/whatever they are called in Europe, or simply scavenge discarded polystyrene boxes.

OK, that's the storage sorted out. Now for the cooking.

George Foreman grill. Electric frying pan/wok.

Are you up to fixing cars or fences? If so, I might consider swopping your services for my culinary ones.

xx

[Wuppertal]

Thanks for the replies A few things to answer:

Of course fridges haven't been around forever and people survived perfectly easily without them for centuries. But I suspect that in the days where not everyone had a fridge, the food on offer at the supermarkets reflected this. Nowadays, the assumption (which is pretty true) is that everyone has a fridge, so the shelves are stocked accordingly. So, if someone survived without a fridge several decades ago, that is not really the same as today because I bet things were more accommodated for the fact that many people didn't own one, which is not the case any more.

Tinned food: nope, barely anything tinned in Italy. Everything is wonderfully fresh as lots of it is grown locally. The fruit is lovely, but as I said, as delicious and healthy as the fruit is, you can't survive on that alone. And even with tinned food, if you don't eat the whole tin's worth at once, it's meant to be stored in a fridge...

Pasta sauces: actually I always make my own sauces rather than buying ready-made sauces - when I have access to milk, cheese and butter.

Buy a fridge...as I said in my original post, I'm in the last of four months here. I don't think it would be worth it even if I was right at the beginning of my short stay. If I had the money for such expendibles, I wouldn't be living somewhere that assumes human beings don't eat.

Keeping milk - that's an interesting one, thanks! Actually I have kind of done that to a certain extent - on occaisons I have bought some milk and kept it submerged in cold water in the sink/bidet. Problem is, most milk cartons over here have a "rip-open" lid - as with, say, a can of coke, once you've opened it, you can't really close it, so it has to stay upright, which isn't possible in the sink/bidets that I have available to me.

Any critics: next time you look in your fridge, think what you couldn't have if you didn't have one. It's not that hard to do.

[sejintenej]

Thanks for the replies A few things to answer:

Of course fridges haven't been around forever and people survived perfectly easily without them for centuries. But I suspect that in the days where not everyone had a fridge, the food on offer at the supermarkets reflected this. Nowadays, the assumption (which is pretty true) is that everyone has a fridge, so the shelves are stocked accordingly. So, if someone survived without a fridge several decades ago, that is not really the same as today because I bet things were more accommodated for the fact that many people didn't own one, which is not the case any more.

Your comments are semi-valid; yes, shop goods were in a state to last - such as dried pulses - lentils, beans, split peas, plus mushrooms, fruit, etc which are still popular and freely available here in supermarkets. They bought enough for today, not the week (because the grandmothers had time to shop every day). They made pasta at home every day - which you cannot do - and used tiny quantities of other perishable goods. You don't use fats but you do use olive oil (keep in darkness otherwise it goes rancid) even on bread

In the old days one didn't have expensive double glazing, wall to wall insulation etc but you did have drafts and cool corners. In summer keep your shutters closed - it keeps the heat out and the house nice and cool. You can have the windows open if you wish.
The suggestion about a wet cloth around the milk container is a practical version of the old terracotta pots we used and kept wet. Why not get a wet rag, wind it round the container and stand it in one centimetre of water in a pudding bowl for example; the important thing is that the cloth is kept wet because you want the evaporation. ** This is good for just about anything which needs to be kept cool.
In Italy don't you have UHT milk? That doesn't need cool when sealed and after opening it lasts outside the fridge for at least 3 days in a cool corner.
IF you get tinned goods (I did see your comment) then do NOT keep food in tins even when you have a fridge - glass jars in wet cloth again.

** one good thing from Mr Kirby; it takes one calorie to heat 1 cc of water by one degree centigrade but it takes (from memory) 80 calories to evaporate one cc of water from liquid to gaseous state with no rise in temperature. That heat has to come out of your milk or whatever.

[icomefromalanddownunder]

Thanks for the replies A few things to answer:


Any critics: next time you look in your fridge, think what you couldn't have if you didn't have one. It's not that hard to do.

Have just complied with your request.

The only things that I would have a problem with are for the pets: chicken carcasses and raw kangaroo, but still fixable with a polystyrene box that I'm sure I'll find at the back of the tack room. OK, so I'll need to empty out the rat poo, and there might be a wee bit of a hole chewed in one corner, but it's all fixable.

Having moved around the World, never had much money, spent many happy hours cooking on two burner metho stoves on yachts, and spent months in Europe during uni vacations living on fresh bread, cheese and fruit (don't like salami), and returning to UK trimmed, tanned and terrific methinks that you doth protest a wee bit too much.

xxx

[Angela Woodford]

I agree with Caroline!

Having spent a few years in student accommodation either without fridge, or with fridge in horrible condition (nobody could or would face trying to clean it) it's very possible to survive without a fridge. On the occasions when one would find an OK fridge on the landing, anything nice put in it would be a "Thought that was mine!" "But it had my name on the carton" "I know I had a slice of cheesecake in here... gone..." situation.

Milk in mini cartons survived quite well on the window sill.

I too looked in my fridge. There's not a lot in it! There's so much fresh produce available at the moment buying loads of food at one go seems a bit pointless. So we're living like students!

I loved your memories that our grandmothers made fresh pasta every day David.... my earliest memories of pasta are of the Heinz fluorescent spaghetti variety, with little blobs of chewy cheese, in a large or small tin.... Oh yes, that standby, macaroni cheese

We certainly didn't have a fridge in the Fifties. All that baking lived in stacks of tins in a capacious pantry, milk in glass bottles in a bucket at the bottom, meat and leftover meat (!!) under mesh dome things. Of course there was no cling film. There was greaseproof paper for wrapping. Food rested happily and chilled under a plate-on-top. How I wish I had that pantry now!

Courage, Thomas! You will manage OK.

[Laura M]

Not that this will be of a comfort, but I figure as this is a thread dedicated to food, I just wanted to say, it's taken four years of studentdom but last night I may have created the greatest shepherds pie (or cottage pie not really sure, either way its a pie) known to mankind!! I am very proud and also very aware that my being able to cook is probably more useful than my degree!!

[J.R.]

Not that this will be of a comfort, but I figure as this is a thread dedicated to food, I just wanted to say, it's taken four years of studentdom but last night I may have created the greatest shepherds pie (or cottage pie not really sure, either way its a pie) known to mankind!! I am very proud and also very aware that my being able to cook is probably more useful than my degree!!

Allow the cooking wiz from Leafy Dorking to come to your aid, Laura, (if you'll pardon the expression !!)

Shepherds Pie = Made with Lamb.

Cottage Pie = Made with Beef.

Rather obvious, really.

Back to the oven !

[Mrs C.]

Pasta sauces: actually I always make my own sauces rather than buying ready-made sauces - when I have access to milk, cheese and butter.

Use tomatoes , peppers, courgettes , onions etc instead!
Much healthier !
Pasta sauce doesn`t have to be cheese-based!