On Wed, 11 Feb 2004 23:48:22 +0100, "Christophe Bachmann"
> wrote:

[Frogleg wrote]

>> >> It must have been *very* hard work to shop for and prepare relatively
>> >> 'new' meals each day.
>> >
>> >Absolutely not, a lot of cooked meals can be kept a few days without
>> >refrigeration if you respect these basic rules :
>>
>> >- If you at all can, use a preservation method, canning, laying
>underwater,
>> >coating with fat, honey or salt, dessicate... etc.
>>
>> Yes, this is true of preserving foods. Does not apply to Sunday's
>> roast chicken. My (most recent) contention is that it would have been
>> a whole lot of *work* to not be able to shove something in the 'fridge
>> for a few days (or freezer for a couple of months).
>
>Could apply even to Sunday's leftover chicken ; carve as much meat as you
>can from the bones, drop bones in stock-pot, reheat meat quickly and seal
>with lard, should keep a few days, but it is far more risky than serve the
>cold chicken monday noon, which will do without problem.

How often do you seal leftovers with lard? Or make chicken soup
immediately after preparing a meal of roast chicken? Again, all this
is *possible*, but an enormous amount of work. How happy Mrs. Cratchit
must have been to find only a fragment of bone left from her Christmas
dinner goose! No more work in the kitchen *that* day, aside from
washing up.

>It seems our positions are not so far apart, I just would like to remember
>that there were alternative means of doing things.
>Once again, for everybody, play safe, know your limits, and do not take
>chances with food, they did what they had to do, we don't have to.

Let me shake your hand. :-) Just as soon as I wash it.