That pesky learning-curve ---- again : Ken Gibbs

The Cold-Chain in the home environment

As one grows older apace, one learns the darndest things, usually from children or, more frequently, from the grandchildren perhaps because there tend to be more of them.

Having been retired from UNICEF, I never thought that I would need to become part of the cold chain; but I fear I was wrong. This time, it was about a replacement fridge-freezer selected based on the available space in our utility room and, naturally, cost. Simple, you would think, but I live in the English West-Country from where the Pilgrim Fathers set sail to avoid further dealings with – well, you guessed it right, I imagine, the English.

For those not familiar with the quirks of the Celts – those tribes variously found in the English West-Country; in Wales; in Scotland; and particularly in Ireland and Brittany (France) and even further afield, they have a behaviour profile quite unlike all others. Being a non-Celt myself, I have had to learn how to adapt. This is where the learning curve comes in. Perhaps a bit of background is necessary here.

Many years ago, my son gained employment requiring that he move to another area of the UK and he found suitable accommodation in his new home which came supplied with all necessary kitchen equipment, so that his existing fridge-freezer would have to be thrown out or recycled. I was horrified and asked if I could perhaps buy it off him to stop it going to scrap ? Apparently I could, and a deal was struck where I paid the cartage to our home.

I was delighted. The fridge freezer was German made, solid, reliable and, best of all, it came with a book of instructions – as one would expect of a German device – precise and with clear illustrations. It did what the instruction book said it should. That was 15 or 16 years ago. Recently, however, we got an ice build-up in the freezer compartment which meant it was almost impossible to extract the bottom drawer in the freezer compartment. An ‘engineer’ was called who explained the problem was terminal, and said that his ‘fix’ should only be viewed as temporary.

The device ran beautifully again for about six months when it seemed that the ‘engineer’ had been quite right. We decided on a new one and went in search of a replacement.

For those who haven’t learned one of the basic rules of marriage, NEVER go shopping with one’s spouse. Logic and emotions are unsuitable bed-fellows when it comes to purchasing what is known in the trade as ‘white-goods’ – those various devices found in the kitchen and utility room in the majority of houses. While I would have liked to have an identical replacement based on performance, my wife seemed to be persuaded by colour and the ease with which she seemed to be able to extract empty freezer drawers. The only thing on which some degree of agreement was reached was price. To replicate what we’d had before came in at around twice the price of the nicely coloured possible replacement. The nicely coloured replacement was ordered.

Curiously, having paid for the device, the provider found that stock was too low, and we had to wait for a couple of weeks before they found one that was available. During this time, there was a lively exchange of messages between ourselves and the provider about the terms and conditions of purchasing something that hadn’t yet arrived. The responses – where they bothered to respond – were unclear.

Eventually, the fridge-freezer arrived.

The second part of the learning curve now kicked in. We were told that under no circumstances should we switch the device on until it had been ‘resting’ for at least 4 hours. This was said to be very important. Did this mean that new fridges become tired during transport ?

So, here we have rapidly warming items from the former fridge-freezer waiting till the four hours had passed before switching on – and a further wait was required to allow the temperature inside the fridge freezer to drop before adding food items. I wondered how many items would have to end in the compost heap.

The old fridge-freezer had had easily visible temperature readouts for the two compartments, but the new (and presumably improved device) had none. Consulting the manual indicated that one was obliged to purchase a thermometer which should be placed inside . . . . . . Curiously, this was not noted when we originally had the discussion in the shop. I suppose we could simply check items as they came out of the fridge by sniffing them ?

What I found most difficult to handle was that the manual was not printed in black and white but in a light shade of grey and white so that one had to have a very bright light to enable one to read anything. Oh, and the English was a trifle ‘wobbly’ inclining me to wonder what influence gave it that character. I checked and found that the brand that we had just bought in fact is owned by a Turkish company which might explain things. Ah, well.

The illustrations left something to be desired. In amongst the items which came with the device were a couple of packets, with no labels and nowhere in the manual was it obvious what their contents were. I worked late into the night trying to mount what I took to be ‘spacers’, only to find that they were nothing of the sort. They were spare plastic hinges should you require to change the freezer door from right hanging to left hanging. The ‘spacers’ I finally found under some of the paperwork.

Well, it hasn’t blown up on us yet, so I suppose we should be thankful, but my head hurts from all the investigations to discover what should go where to do what. If, perchance, the ‘kengibbs’ label on the XUNICEF blog disappears, it might well be because of bad food from a poor choice of device.

You have been warned.

*****

A fridge-freezer is not purely for storing foodstuffs, but is also used for information. Our old fridge-freezer was covered in children’s scribblings and pictures, held in place by a variety of fridge magnets which also had been carefully selected to reflect family values. My two favourites are:

‘My family tree is full of nuts’, and

‘The more people I meet, the more I like my dog’.

My wife, on the other hand prefers:

‘A balanced diet is a chocolate in each hand’, and

‘Behind every successful man stands an astonished woman’.

We have two female grandchildren, both of whom enjoy working with horses. One even was able to paint a picture of her horse Archie, when she was just thirteen years old. The other seems to have an ability to communicate with her chosen steed. Visiting the fridge always lightens my day.

 Georgie with her horse, ‘Charm’ 

 ‘Arthur’, Mia’s horse