Judging a house by the contents of its fridge

May 3rd, 2012

Appliance News Appliance Talk Fridges & Freezers

A squiz inside a family’s fridge can offer some revealing insights to their culinary likes and dislikes.

Is there a sweet tooth in the family? A carnivore, kids, or enough spicy sauces to harbour a Mexican mistress?

There is a bit one can decipher from the contents, or lack of! Like the bachelor with his six pack of beer in an otherwise bare fridge.

Poking around a couple of different fridges we found very diverging taste buds…

A tour inside the first, a modern Fisher & Paykel beauty at the Lahman residence suggests a taste for the saucy.

Upon opening the stainless steel door one is taken back by the amount of condiments jammed in along the door and top shelf of the fridge.

Care for BBQ sauce? At the Lahman’s you can choose from smokey, chilli, or traditional BBQ sauce in plastic bottles, or spicy, meaty and asian influenced in slightly fancier glass bottles. There are  four varieties of sweet chilli sauce, three different mayos including Japanese mayo, an assortment of salad dressings from fat free* to the creamiest caesar, and enough near empty chutney jars to make Nana nervous.

“I like my sauces,” defends the father of the house. Righto, we say, keep your condiments on!

Further down the shelves we see deli ham tucked tidily in a plastic bag for easy access, kids’ cheese sticks, yogurt, full cream milk as well as reduced fat milk, bread, a bottle of wine, two Coronas, apple juice, chicken breasts, steak, eggs, melon, and grapes piled on a plastic Barbie plate.

No vegetarians here, and kids, yes we think so. It seems like a run of the mill fridge, full of healthy food. This is confirmed with the vege department, also brimming with nutritious raw foods.

The vege boxes have loads of fresh vegetables: green leafies, pumpkin, tomatoes, carrots and more.

“With the kids we end up eating a lot at home, so the fridge always needs to be full of food.”

Down the road we visit a very different fridge.

It is older, smaller and white.

Inside it’s fully loaded with what must be a vegetarian’s delight: hummus, Cleopatra unpasteurized milk, enough soaked beans to float a boat, avocados, paw paws, nuts, cheeses, what looks like olives from every European country, and a lot of vegetables we hardly recognise (they are organic).

It is a chaotic fridge, overflowing, lacking door shelves, order or organisation. In fact, opening the door is a trick every time to make sure the other hand can catch whatever falls out.

But everything inside is fresh, healthy and delicious. These guys love food, love cooking, love eating. And I’ve been invited to dinner! Yum.