In ancient Rome, fresh fish was a status symbol. Senators and patricians used to serve it at banquets – and the more exotic the species, the better. So important was freshness that apparently Lucullus had a canal dug through a mountain to fill his ponds with seawater, so that he could stock unusual species of fish for his guests. Some luxury fish varieties were even stowed onto barges and shipped live to Rome, so they could be eaten as fresh as possible.
Roman Banquets
The Romans also loved fresh fruit. Wealthy men used to grow everything from apples to pomegranates on their estates, and would often eat them as dessert at the end of a banquet. As the Roman Empire expanded, so fruit trees were planted across Europe – it was probably the Romans who introduced the apple (as well as the vine) to Britain.
Fresh - or Irradiated?
But what is fresh food? As author Susanne Freidberg shows in her new book Fresh: A Perishable History (pub Harvard University Press, $27.95/ £20.95), the notion of freshness in our food is not as simple as we might think. Freshness means different things for different foodstuffs; it has changed its meaning over time, and can mean different things to different people. As Freidberg points out, new technologies (from shrink wrapping to irradiation) mean that food can now retain its ‘just picked’ appearance for a long time.
Cured Meats and Pickled Pears
It was refrigeration that altered the notion of freshness for good – and perhaps even introduced it. Prior to that, food was more likely to be either obviously safe to eat - or ‘off’. Some items would, of course, be preserved in order to keep them edible for as long as possible. A seasonal glut meant fruit had to be dried or bottled quickly, fish had to be salted or smoked, meat cured: the ancient Romans were very inventive, even pickling pears in boiled wine. These preserved foods looked very different to the fresh versions, so consumers were never going to be confused.
What's in Your Fridge?
But the advent of refrigeration meant that food was increasingly processed away from the eyes of the public – and once refrigerated transportation became a reality, you no longer had to live close to where your food was grown to enjoy it on your dinner table. Today, of course, you can go into the ‘fresh foods’ section of your supermarket and find green beans from Kenya, blueberries from Poland and strawberries from Israel. In Fresh, Susanne Freidberg looks at the concept of ‘freshness’ applied to beef, fish, eggs, fruit, vegetables and milk – and the effect that refrigeration in particular has had on farming, on farm workers and consumers. Today, for instance, workers in some poor countries are completely reliant on producing fresh foods for supermarkets in the US and UK.
Fresh is an academic book, but is a wide ranging historical account - packed with interesting details. It will certainly make you think about where your fresh food comes from – and how it was produced.
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