21st Century Tragedy

It’s no secret I love to eat, so when our refrigerator broke, I was incredibly distraught. It was a time of crisis, and I wasn’t even home. Instead of being helpful in any way, I sent text after text ensuring that yes, the food in the freezer was alright, it was just the refrigerator that had suddenly decided to be warmer than the pantry.

Twenty-four hours later when I finally gained the courage to open the stink box and evacuate it, the experience was heartbreaking. My unopened gallon of soy milk, once stunning, sweet smelling strawberries, and my entire week’s worth of lunches straight into the compost bin. As the unopened feta and barely used whipped cream followed I was near tears (this is where we pretend I’m being overly dramatic).

So not only did I have to throw out food that would have been otherwise perfect (except for the whole bacteria-growing refrigerator situation), we also had to eat the random things we could find around the house that required no refrigeration. Since I had already cooked most of my meals for the week, there wasn’t much left, just grains and some (expired) macaroni and cheese from a box (which was of course made with water… yum.).

Despite my distraught (read: hungry) state, I couldn’t help but think that people used to live like this. As part of my new job I was flipping through magazines from the early 1920’s and they broke down how to hang meat to make it tender and last longer when an entire animal can’t be cooked and eaten at once. I certainly wasn’t about to hang up all of my food from the apple tree outside and hope for the best. But seriously, were their stomachs made of steal? just the thought of that gives me food poisoning.

So instead of my tasty Fourth of July meal I had planned (including homemade veggie burgers and some ridiculously tasty fries), it looks like we might be eating oatmeal. I wish I was kidding.