I'm talking about that old chest freezer down in the utility room. It's what we needed to get to the bottom of. My mother gave us the freezer in 2005 as a kind of housewarming gift. She was here for three weeks, and after a few days she said: "I think you need a freezer." So we spent a few days of her visit going to a few stores to see what brands and models the professionals would recommend. All of a sudden, that freezer is 16 years old.
This photo is about five days old. We had already removed about half the contents of the freezer. We've been keeping a lot of bread in there since the village bakery ended the bread delivery service a few years ago.
One of the bags Walt found down at the bottom of the freezer held a good kilogram of quince that we had cored and cut into wedges. One thing to make with them would be jelly, but we just don't eat that much jelly. So I made the quince-equivalent of applesauce with them (compote de coings).
And with the quince compote and a handful of pecans I made a cake. I didn't purée the quince compote, I just mashed it — so there are some chunks of white quince flesh in the cake. 
Another bag we found at the bottom of the freezer contained at least a kilogram of grits. If you don't know what grits are... they are a kind of polenta made with white corn. In the U.S. South, we cook and eat them the way you cook and eat oatmeal or cream of wheat. I used to bring bags of grits back from N.C. when I'd go there annually to see my family, and I'm sure these grits are pretty old, but I cooked some the other day and they're good.
Close to the grits in the bottom of the freezer were two bags of corn meal. You might call it corn "semolina" (semoule de maïs in French. I see baked cornbread (leavened with baking powder, not yeast) and fried cornbread ("hushpuppies") in the near future. Both bags of corn meal, one white and one yellow, had been imported from Italy. I'm not sure when or where we bought them, but it was somewhere here in France.
Here's the 16-year-old chest freezer. Behind it on the right is the upright freezer that we bought in 2017. Behind it on the left is the boiler, which heats water for the radiators all around the house. The idea was that we would empty out and "de-commission" the older freezer. We set it here "temporarily" while we worked on emptying it out, but somehow it kept filling up over and over again. The danger is that it might suddenly give up the ghost one day, and then what would we do with all the stuff in it?
And the new, upright freezer is frost-free. The chest freezer is not and needs to be emptied and de-frosted periodically. What a chore.
ReplyDeleteThe meatloaf on the third photo looks temting. Oops, it's a cake!
ReplyDeleteLOL!! That was my first thought!!
DeleteMy thought, too!
DeleteIt does look like a meatloaf, but it sure smelled different when it was cooking.
DeleteMy thought, too!
DeleteIf this keeps filling, then buy a new Upright to stand next to the other new one!!
ReplyDeleteYou and Walt do way more cooking than us... and we now have a fridge with freezer below, plus the new [4yr old] upright.... plus our "it's still going" freezer that we keep only meat in [it's now 30yrs old!!].... and we find they all fill and empty and refillllllll! I am, like you, trying to empty one.... the upright and the new fridge freezer both auto defrost..... the 30yr old meat freezer doesn't and needs defrosting.
An American friend, Ellen, who lives in Paris, told me she has a 35-year-old freezer that still works fine. Maybe the one we are taking out of service would run that long, but we're trying to scale back. Too much c'est too much. And especially with a chest freezer, because you never know what disasters or treats are lurking in the bottom. Besides that self-defrosting issue. We also have a self-defrosting freezer in the kitchen (lower part of refrigerator-freezer).
DeleteKeep up the good work -- we're pulling for you!
ReplyDeleteTime to throw a massive party and cook, cook, cook.
ReplyDeleteConfinement. Maybe one day we'll have people back in the house or at least in the yard again.
DeleteI don’t know if you will remember, but you gave us a jar of your homemade quince jelly once and it was sooooooo good. We used it up. Once I melted it in a little saucepan and poured it over French toast. To this day I don’t know what a quince is. 🤪
ReplyDeleteHi Lynn, I don't have a clear memory of that, but I'm glad you enjoyed it. My mother enjoyed it. She could eat quinces and pears (which are related, I think) but, because of allergies, not apples, oranges, or grapes. For several years I took her jars of quince jelly whenever I went to spend a couple of weeks in North Carolina.
DeleteBack in the old days (60s, 70s) refrigerators and freezers lasted forever. My father had an avacado green side-by -side he had painted white. It lasted until 2013. If your freezer gives up, you'll have some defrosting time to plan creative meals.
ReplyDeleteHow was that quince cake by the way?
I thought the quince cake was very good — at least as good as applesauce cake. It didn't taste at all like meatloaf, despite appearances.
DeleteLast year we bought a new freezer to replace a hand-me-down from my mother which we had used for 35 years and she had used for 16! We can only hope the new one will last half as long (and we get to enjoy it!)
ReplyDeleteIn Europe they say that household appliances are built to last about 10 years. We've been here 18 years and we're on our third kitchen stove, second microwave oven, second refrigerator, second dishwasher, and second washing machine.
DeletePerhaps with your smaller garden this year, you won’t be putting so many things in the freezer.
ReplyDeleteThat's the plan. But you never know how big the tomato, zucchini, and haricot vert harvests will turn out to be.
DeleteMy R-F is 21 years old and not a problem at all. The one before that was 24 years old when I left it and purchased a new one ( now 21 years). They were double-doors with R on one side and F on the other. I replaced the seal on the first one against the advice of Whirlpool who at that time (probably age 10 or 12 years) they said their units usually had a life expectancy of 8 years. I don't believe they really know. The first was Whirlpool, this one is a GE Profile! I don't worry about it dieing - I am worried about when we get that BIG earthquake that is overdue here in Oregon. I have been systematically trying to take out old frozen "surprises" thanks to you and Ken's blogsposts! Merci à tous!
ReplyDeleteIt looked like meatloaf!
we had a side-by-side fridge-freezer from 1992 until we left California in 2003. At that point, we gave it to friends who lived just a few blocks from us in SF. I wonder it they still have it and if it is still running. I should ask them. The people who make and sell such appliances obviously want to sell as many as they can, as frequently as they can, so saying the normal lifespan of the things is short is just to their advantage.
DeleteOui, mais si on sait qu'un réfrigérateur de la marque X ne dure que dix ans (built-in obsolescence), mais qu'un frigo de la marque Z dure plus longtemps, Z vendra pus de frigos que X.
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