The Old lady and Her Freezer Full Of Secrets
What happens when Depression Era people see meat on sale?...they buy it...sometimes ALL of it.
A woman named Sue called me one morning asking if I could cook for her 80 year old mother named Elsie. Elsie’s husband had died a few months back and it seemed, to Sue, that she wasn’t eating properly, with little to no interest in cooking any longer. I said I most certainly could help, but warned her that my experience with cooking for the elderly was usually met with skepticism and disdain on the part of the parent. They usually felt that they didn't need any help, that they were doing “just fine”. Sue said that she had talked to her Mom already and Elsie was on board and excited.
The morning of our interview I met both of them at Elsie’s townhouse. She lived in a gated 55 years and over community. Her house was filled with antiques and every inch of wall had framed family photos. Her kitchen was basic, a small space with formica counters and faux oak cabinetry. I would be cooking in my commercial kitchen so I didn’t need to explore her kitchen. We sat in the sunny space to conduct the new client interview. Elsie loved all vegetables (but prefered canned peas over frozen or fresh) and she loved all meats. As we began talking about various cuisines, Sue interrupted me to ask if I could use some of the ingredients that Elsie already had in her house. I had done this many times before and told her no problem. Sue then said that we should go through her cupboards as well as her fridge and freezer. She would then bag up everything I could use for the first cook.
After we got done, Sue, Elsie and I went through her foodstuffs. I always loved using the client’s groceries because it was always fun to test my skills to make things from what I was given. A Food Challenge of sorts. I liked to call this “Topic Cooking”, as in, give me a topic, say rice, black beans, tomatoes, limes, herbs…ok, this makes me think Latin cuisine. Food topics were always interesting and if the client was into various cuisines then the sky was the limit. Sue packed up the ingredients in brown paper bags. When we got to the kitchen freezer all that was in there were bags of frozen vegetables, ice cream and ice packs. That’s when Elsie said, “Could you use the meats I have in my garage freezer?” “For sure!”, I exclaimed.
Elsie led Sue and I into the garage and then opened the door to a very large freezer, and I have to say, I had NEVER seen SO MUCH MEAT in one person’s house. She had this thing PACKED. Chicken, pork, beef, whole turkeys, lamb shanks. Things in plastic, things in foil. The list went one and on. I said to her, “I could cook for you for at least a year without having to buying any meat.” Just then, Sue said scornfully to her mother, “Mom! What did we talk about with hoarding meat?! I thought we decided you would stop doing this!” Elsie looked at the stocked freezer and replied, “But they were ON SALE! Look at the deals!” Sue then grabbed a pack of ground beef and, startled, shouted “The dates, Mom! Look at these dates! How old are some of these?! Oh my God!”
I asked to see the package and saw that it was two years old. I looked at Sue and she gave me a knowing look. We now needed to go through the freezer and inspect the dates on each item. This now became an episode of Hoarders, only with meat. Sue then gently said, “Mom. I know you don’t want to throw out any of this, but we need to. I’m going to grab the big trash can.” Sue walked over to the large city issued wheeled trash can and flipped open the top while Elsie started saying, “But these are all good. They have been frozen. The chef can defrost them and use them.” I turned to Elsie and showed her the freezer burn on the edges and top of the package of meat I was holding. “Actually Ma’am, I cant use this. It has freezer burn and if I tried to use this you could get sick, plus it wouldn’t taste very good.” She then said that she used some recently and it tasted “just fine”. Sue started pulling out each item, one by one and inspecting the dates. Cut after cut of beef, pork and lamb went into the trash. Elsie questioned the date on each frozen item that Sue handed to me to throw away. “But, wait! That’s only 8 months old. That would be ok to use, wouldn’t it?” Sue looked at her Mom and said, “Why don’t you go into the house Mom?” Elsie held her place next to the freezer, unmovable. The trash bin was getting fuller and fuller, getting ever closer to overflowing. I then thought to ask, “When is your trash pickup?”, because I knew that within hours there was going to be a huge bin with defrosted carcasses, dripping fluids and a stench that would be forthcoming in the summer sun. “Tomorrow”, Sue said. ”Perfect”, I said, giving Elsie a gentle smile. “We couldn’t have timed this purge any better, Elsie!”, I said trying to cheer her up.
After 30 minutes Sue had gone through the entire freezer leaving only a few packages of chicken and beef that was within a 2 month date. I told Elsie I could most certainly make her some lovely meals utilizing what she was left with. Sue bagged them up for me and I added them to the other bags waiting in the garage. I pulled my car around so that we could open the garage door so that I could load up my car. Also, we wheeled the trash bin, now bulging full with the soon to be rotten meats, down to the end of the driveway at the cul-de-sac. I hoped that the neighbors didn’t catch wind of it before the trashmen had the awful task of emptying it into the truck. I mentioned to Sue that she would probably need to come back tomorrow to clean it out after it got emptied. She agreed and thanked me for helping.
A week later I came back with the meals as promised. Elsie greeted me at the door and I carried In the coolers. I placed everything on the counter for her to put away in the fridge. She asked me if I could take some more things for her next cook in a week. I said sure. We walked out into the garage to the freezer. Elsie opened up the door and low and behold, there to my astonishment was shelves, once again, filled with meats and fish. “They were getting rid of a bunch of great looking meat over at the Kroger and I couldn’t help myself. Look how cheap they were!”, she said beaming a smile at me. “I stopped over at Costco too and they had all this fish on sale. Can’t wait to see what you make me with this stuff!” The amount of items was way more than what I cooked in a week’s worth of meals. “This will take me a few months to get through Elsie,” I said. “You wont need to buy anything else for at least two months before I can get through all this.” She looked surprised and said, “Really?”
I continued cooking for her for about a year, and each week that I returned to her house I would pick out more items from her freezer, and each time I opened that door there would be MORE items she had bought on sale, with once empty shelves now stacked full. I wondered if her family’s experience with the Depression had shaped her need to stock up, or if it was something else. Either way, her meat hoarding never stopped.
P.S The title to this story sounds like the name of a Pink Floyd record to me…anyone else? Lol.
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- Shirlé
**All names, places and occupations have been changed to protect the identity of all clients.
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Can see this meat-full freezer and the lady right now, I think my parents were the first in their families' generation NOT to have a separate meat freezer.