I remember from visiting my grandparents in the 1960s there was one cold store in the town. I believe that my grandfather (a doctor) kept some things there, like insulin. I never heard of anyone having a fridge of their own, which is the kind of thing that would have been told to a kid.
I only remember going there for ice cream which was made in a bicycle inner tube. They cut the tube into segments; the ice cream tasted of rubber of course.
In the 70s there was a huge wave of modernization in SE Asia and suddenly people had scooters and cars, girls had miniskirts, and A/C appeared in saree shops at least. I don’t remember if my GPs ever bought a fridge or not, though.
Interestingly enough, cold storage (in a more limited way) was already used centuries before the invention of the electrical refrigerator. For example, in Germany beer was only brewed in winter to avoid spoiling it during the warmer months, and stored in underground beer cellars which were kept cool using ice "harvested" during the winter. To help keep the cellars cool, chestnut trees were planted over them. And from there it was just a small step to also serving the cool beer on benches under the shady chestnut trees (only the beer was provided, food was BYO) - and thus the traditional German beer garden was born.
One small correction, Wikipedia claims that the prohibition against brewing during the summer months was to minimize fire risk, not spoilage.
> The cool seasons were chosen to minimize the risk of fire when boiling mashed grain into wort. Numerous conflagrations had occurred, which resulted in the prohibition of brewing during the summer months. In response, large breweries dug cellars in the banks of the River Isar to keep their beer cool during storage. "Beer cellars" for consuming beer on premises naturally followed.
The article talks about the loss of seasonality in the taste of our foods, which is something I can directly relate to even though I am not that old.
When I was a kid (in the 90s), we got our milk from a local dairy. I distinctly remember the taste of milk changing around May, when the cows started to go outside and switched from dry feed to grass. That does not happen anymore... I wonder what they changed since then.
Grass feeding isn't optimal for health and production of dairy cows - now they typically get fed TMR (total mixed ration) year-round. It's a blend of grain, silage, hay, minerals, and water that gets regularly adjusted by a nutritionist as the ingredient quality/availability changes (batches of hay and silage can vary quite a bit).
The other downside of grass feeding is that it takes a lot of land per cow, and the land has to be the same place as the cow.
I only remember going there for ice cream which was made in a bicycle inner tube. They cut the tube into segments; the ice cream tasted of rubber of course.
In the 70s there was a huge wave of modernization in SE Asia and suddenly people had scooters and cars, girls had miniskirts, and A/C appeared in saree shops at least. I don’t remember if my GPs ever bought a fridge or not, though.