How to keep food out of a refrigerator in the summer - proven "old-fashioned" ways

Tell me how to keep food without a refrigerator in the summer? We have a small dacha, rather a temporary shelter, walls and a roof. In general, for the duration of the vacation, this is enough for us to be in nature. But at the same time, there is some inconvenience: we usually come for at least a week, but there is no refrigerator there. There is no point in buying a unit, the holiday village is not guarded, and the temporary house itself is an unreliable structure. Is it possible to somehow do without it, but so that nothing is lost?

Imagine: it's hot outside, and your refrigerator, which yesterday was loaded with meat, herbs, milk, broke down. Whether it's winter - put everything on the balcony and you don't have to worry, there your stocks will not only not deteriorate, but even have time to freeze. But how to keep food without a refrigerator in the summer? It doesn't matter where you live, in an apartment or a private house, there is always a way to prevent losses. Of course, using the balcony as a freezer will no longer work. But it is quite possible to hold out for a couple of days and not let milk, cottage cheese, butter and even meat disappear. Our great-grandmothers did without this helper, and families used to be large, so there was a lot of food in the house too. Today we decided to recall the "old-fashioned" methods, when we had not even heard of bags - refrigerators. Although they also do a very good job of being a great kitchen helper.

How to keep food out of a refrigerator in summer

Perhaps one of the first to sour dairy products. You can try to save them by extending the terms from a couple of days to a week, depending on the type of product:

1. Milk. Boil with a little baking soda, bottle and place in a bucket of cold water. Cover the top with a towel, but so that its edges are in the water. Change the water periodically.
2. Hard cheese. Saturate the parchment paper with brine. Wrap it around the cheese.
3. Butter. Use the method for hard cheese, or place the butter in a saucepan of salted water. Top with vegetable oil. Another way: storage in a solution of wine vinegar and water.
4. Cottage cheese. It is one of the first to spoil from milk. The only way is to salt it. Pour a good layer of salt on the bottom of the jar. Tamp the curd tightly on top. Cover with cheesecloth dipped in salted water and place something heavy.

What else do we definitely buy with a margin? Of course, eggs, there are always a lot of them in the refrigerator. And without it, they will lie for some time in a container with salt, sand or sawdust. You can also store vegetables in the sand.

How many days and how to store meat and sausage

The named products are not only among the perishable. If there is nothing from the sour milk, then after a piece of spoiled sausage or meat, you can quickly end up in the hospital with poisoning.

So let's start with the sausage. The best situation is with smoked products, they can lie for 3 - 4 days. Put them or better hang them in a dark, but ventilated pantry.

Boiled sausage cannot be stored. It will go bad after a couple of hours in the heat, so try to eat it first.

Now the meat. If it's straight out of the freezer and hasn't melted yet, wrap it in foil and cover it with an old blanket. This will slow down the defrosting process and give you a couple more days of headroom. For fresh meat, there are several "extreme storage" methods:

1. Roll it up in cans, beforehand salting.
2. Wrap with a towel dipped in vinegar or place in a saucepan with a vinegar-based solution.
3. Boil it. Cut in portions, fry until crisp. Wrap in dry thin cloth or gauze and hang in a dark, ventilated room.
4. Place in a saucepan and cover with milk.
5. Shift chicken meat with fresh nettles.

How food was stored in Russia without a refrigerator, an experiment - video