The invention of frozen food

Exactly 80 years ago today, frozen food went on sale for the first time – its introduction involved a considerable logistical effort. After all, it’s not the sort of product you can simply slot onto a shelf. Retailers need freezers, and customers may well need them too.
Eighty years ago, they were still a rarity. And even later on, too. Not every household could afford its own freezer. In the village where my grandmother lived, there was a cold store right up until the 1970s. The rectangular building had been built by the local council. A dozen freezers stood on a beige-brown tiled floor. They were rented by people who couldn’t afford a private freezer. My grandparents were among them. She supplemented my grandfather’s meagre pension by working as a village helper. They grew as many vegetables as possible in their own garden. These were then stored in the cold store, alongside the cuts of meat from the pig that had been fed on kitchen scraps and then slaughtered.
In this age of frozen pizzas and ready meals, that’s hard to imagine now. It does me good to remember that. And to be grateful for the conveniences of modern life. Sometimes I regret that the things in my freezer are anonymous. Vegetables grown somewhere in the world by people I don’t know. Ready meals made by anonymous people or