BS: Some useful advice.

Subject: BS: Some useful advice.
From: The Shambles
Date: 07 Oct 04 - 11:47 AM

Buying bread with thick slices, always ensures that I run out of bread before it has a chance to go all moldy......

Subject: RE: BS: Some useful advice.
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 07 Oct 04 - 12:08 PM

Shouldn't this be in the Helpful Hints thread?

Subject: RE: BS: Some useful advice.
From: CarolC
Date: 07 Oct 04 - 01:06 PM

Refrigerators are good for that too (preventing bread from going moldy). Can anyone tell me why the refrigerators in the UK generally seem to be significantly different in size than the refrigerators in North America?

Subject: RE: BS: Some useful advice.
From: CarolC
Date: 07 Oct 04 - 01:09 PM

P.S. I don't know whether or not he still does, but Jamie Oliver used to have a "Smeg" brand refrigerator. It was very cute.

Subject: RE: BS: Some useful advice.
From: Micca
Date: 07 Oct 04 - 01:21 PM

putting bread in a refrigerator increases the speed at which it goes stale as it encourages waterloss!! it does slow down mould formation

Subject: RE: BS: Some useful advice.
From: CarolC
Date: 07 Oct 04 - 01:32 PM

If you put it in the toaster for a minute or two, Micca, it makes the bread all nice and fresh again.

Subject: RE: BS: Some useful advice.
From: MBSLynne
Date: 07 Oct 04 - 01:38 PM

Australian fridges are bigger too. I have an Aussie size one but it's still always full...but not of bread, which I keep in an old fashioned, enamel bread bin and it rarely goes mouldy...but it is home made not shop bought.

Love Lynne

Subject: RE: BS: Some useful advice.
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 07 Oct 04 - 01:42 PM

so are UK fridges significantly larger or smaller the US fridges? (Not that size matters - but I'm curious)

Subject: RE: BS: Some useful advice.
From: Bill D
Date: 07 Oct 04 - 01:44 PM

a hair dryer will de-fog your bathroom mirror so you can see to shave..etc....

always have a spare house key or car key where you can get to it..'just in case'

this stuff is the best friend you can have when scrubbing pots & pans.

Subject: RE: BS: Some useful advice.
From: CarolC
Date: 07 Oct 04 - 02:02 PM

Smaller, from what I've been able to see, MMario. A lot of them seem to be able to fit under the counter. The Smeg fridge was about the size (and shape) of a North American fridge from the 1930 or 40s, you know, those smallish ones with the rounded corners. It was a very cool looking fridge (made in Italy). This one looks a lot like the one Jamie Oliver had, only his was red, if I remember correctly.

Here's the Smeg page with a lot of the models they sell in the UK:

http://comparestoreprices.co.uk/by-make/s/smeg-fridges.asp

Subject: RE: BS: Some useful advice.
From: MBSLynne
Date: 07 Oct 04 - 05:33 PM

How can they be smaller than English fridges?? They're tiny!

Subject: RE: BS: Some useful advice.
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 07 Oct 04 - 08:11 PM

Keep sliced bread in its plastic bag in the freezer - will last for 3 months and makes great toast if the popup toaster is set just right for it - has to run longer of course. Some toasters now are made with a special 'frozen bread' button to get the extra time without adjusting your normal setting. If I buy bread at the (Coles/Woolies/ big chains) I pay nearly twice the price I can buy the same brand I can get elsewhere - so I buy a few loaves at once of the whole grain type.

From time to time, I put a couple of slices in a plastic container in the fridge to thaw overnight so I can make a Jaffle, which can be made with the frozen stuff, but is easier to do with thawed.

Robin

Subject: RE: BS: Some useful advice.
From: mack/misophist
Date: 07 Oct 04 - 10:24 PM

English refrigerators are of a different size because English kitchens are usually of a different size, or so it is said.

Subject: RE: BS: Some useful advice.
From: Deckman
Date: 07 Oct 04 - 10:29 PM

Are you sure that it's not because they're spelt different? Bob

Subject: RE: BS: Some useful advice.
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 07 Oct 04 - 11:55 PM

English fridges are smaller, that's why we hide the bodies under the patio.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Some useful advice.
From: Bert
Date: 08 Oct 04 - 12:11 AM

Add fat when you make your bread and it will keep longer.

In France it is illegal to add fat to bread, so the French buy their bread fresh twice a day.

Refrigerators in the UK are smaller than those in the US because the average UK home wasn't able to afford a refrigerator until the mid 1950's. Whereas in the US cooling food, first with the ice box and later with the refrigerator, had been in many homes from early in the twentieth century.

So Americans had got into the habit of putting anything and everything into the refrigerator (whether it needed it or not). It will take the limeys a few more years to catch up. Then they will be buying larger 'fridges.

Subject: RE: BS: Some useful advice.
From: CarolC
Date: 08 Oct 04 - 12:14 AM

Thanks for explaining that, Bert! I've been wondering.

Subject: RE: BS: Some useful advice.
From: JennieG
Date: 08 Oct 04 - 12:38 AM

The climate in quite a lot of Oz means that much of the food we buy has to be kept refrigerated or it will go mouldy and have to be thrown out. Perhaps that's why Ozzie fridges are bigger....we have to store more in them.

Cheers
JennieG who is at present contemplating the purchase of a new fridge.....

Subject: RE: BS: Some useful advice.
From: Gurney
Date: 08 Oct 04 - 02:45 AM

What a lot of rot about bread. The reason friges are bigger in the US and Oz and Godzone is because they drink Lager!


Have you ever tasted lager at room temprature?

Dark ale and stout rules OK.   Or rules KO.

Subject: RE: BS: Some useful advice.
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 08 Oct 04 - 05:35 AM

Most things are bigger in the US (stop chortling, you men, I said MOST things).

Fridges certainly are. You can store far more frozen heads in an American Freezer.

And more ice-cubes. Americans have always had a thing about having to have loads of ice-cubes in their drinks.

I have just now upset my flatmate by taking out the ice cube trays to make room in our tiny UK freezer for my frozen veg and chicken portions.

He will sulk the rest of the day.


..xx..e

Subject: RE: BS: Some useful advice.
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 08 Oct 04 - 09:15 AM

Aussie fridges are bigger cause we have to store slabs of XXXX in them - and we can only make it into town off the cattle property, , it takes a week to drive there and back. In my grandfather's day, they had to do it by horse and cart, and the journey took two months, which is why every outback cattle property had several families looking after it - one would be eating their food while the others were journeying to town and back buying more.

Subject: RE: BS: Some useful advice.
From: el_punkoid_nouveau
Date: 08 Oct 04 - 11:45 AM

If you want to know the REAL reason for the difference in size, it's the weather. Us poor b****y Poms/Limeys think that our weather is so cold and miserable that we don't need fridges to keep everything cold. Consequently, your average english fridge is not only smaller, but set to keep everything about the temperature of the cold water tap.

Having no choice but to benefit from the Oztralian experience, I now appreciate things like frozen lettuce, ice cold water (so that you can't taste all the rubbish they put in it, allegedly for our health).

But then, of course, one has to ask why the Americans manage to use a different size of paper from the rest of the civilised world...

Subject: RE: BS: Some useful advice.
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 08 Oct 04 - 07:49 PM

Because they're more obsessed with their backsides?

:-)