If you garden, can, or keep chickens, you're already more in touch with your food than most. But when it comes to keeping food fresh, do you toss it in the refrigerator and hope for the best? Jihyun Ryou created these analog appliances based on our oral history, preserving produce and the past at the same time.
Each shelf, a simple construction that utilizes natural technology, offers an oft-forgotten nugget of wisdom, from storing apples and potatoes together, adding a little rice in a spice lid to regulate humidity, or using sand to hydrate and keep carrots and leeks in their natural, upright position.
We're not kicking the fridge to the curb any time soon, but wouldn't it be neat to pop an egg in its cup to make sure it sinks before making breakfast?
View more of Jihyun Ryou's project on Architizer and her website, Save Food From the Fridge.
(Images: Jihyun Ryou via Architizer)
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Keep in mind that a sinking egg doesn't necessarily mean you can't eat it!
Not to be picky, but those are green onions, not leeks in the first photo - once carrots and leeks are pulled out of the soil I don't think they care what position they're in, natural or otherwise.
Also, I think storing eggs at room temperature is a little risky.....
@Rosekraft
Refrigeration hasn't always been around, and it isn't available everywhere anyways. People got along just fine with their eggs stored at room temperature. Heck they come out of the chicken at least at room/outdoor temperature. It doesn't matter all that much.
A sinking egg is good - a floating egg is bad.
Bakers often don't use eggs that are refrigerated, they are kept at room temperature. Most of the word shops daily for their foods and it is only in places like the US that we store food in refrigerators for longer periods than we need to. If you think about it, most eggs that would be stored out of the fridge would be eaten in a couple of days from the time they are laid so it isn't a big deal.
Also I was always told to be careful about putting potatoes and apples near other veggies and fruits or together. So I googled it and sure enough, you shouldn't place the two together. Potatoes make the apples go bad faster.
I keep eggs out if im going to bake with them- cold eggs dont mix as well or froth well. But I do keep them in the fridge if Im not using them. Bakeries probably do the same thing
Sorry, this seems like a gimmick to me, and maybe not well founded in science. (Neat looking, but essentially just more clutter. You'd have to be very minimalist AND interested in the specific food involved for this to be worth space dedicated to this as your art.)
Assuming that you have a fridge, what's the point?
This is cute but totally impractical. The article starts off with "If you garden . . .". Well, if you garden, you'll need to line your entire house with these gadgets to deal with the fall bounty, as well as drop the temperature to match that of grandma's root cellar. It strikes me as being a lot more about displaying your yuppy/design credentials than about preserving food or saving electricity.
First, the U.S. is possibly one of the only Western countries to refrigerate eggs. I spent 20 minutes searching for eggs the first time I went grocery shopping in Dublin, only to find them on the shelf next to the bread.
Second, the article starts with, "If you garden, you're already more in touch with your food than most ..." That implies that gardeners/chicken-keepers/etc might know about some of these old storage and preservation techniques, not that these are practical gadgets for large-scale gardeners.
Jeez, lighten up people. It's a cute little invention with some fun 'what if' commentary.
Has anyone from Portlandia seen this yet?
I always wonder what room temperature is supposed to be in this context. Doesn't room temperature depend on your local climate and what season of the year it is? Before I had HVAC (or insulation) in my house, summer room temperature in my kitchen could be 85 or 90 degrees and winter room temperature could be 40 degrees. One of those room temperatures I would feel safe leaving food out, the other ... not so much.
I thought of The Fountain (movie) and zeer pots.
I think this is probably fairly impractical for home use, but I work in history museums and kind of love the idea of this for an exhibit on preservation, gardening/agricultural life, etc.
if eggs are organic they are fine at room temp. nobody in my country chills them. at first it seemed scary, but it's fine.
This came across more installation than functional storage system, so I think it's cool (because of course this isn't practical to actually store your food). I love the traditional wisdom and the simplicity with which it was implemented - thumbs up!
I guess I am still trying to figure out what "folk" wisdom this all came from. From all the "Folk" wisdom I know Apples don't mix with nearly any veggie because of the gas they put off. Potatoes can be the same way. You are supposed to keep apples away from other things unless you need to force ripen things like bananas for bread etc.
Here in Canada, the best before date on a carton of eggs is rated for room temperature storage. They last well beyond that date if kept in the fridge.
I know this was posted 5 days ago, but I just wanted to comment that I saw her explain her project (she is an artist) on a video in YouTube. The website that this post links to doesn't explain it very well, neither does her personal website. It's a cool concept that may or may not be practical for everyday life, but neat, nonetheless.
See the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mG9xYVyAnuc&feature=share