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Frostbite
- How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves
- Narrated by: Nicola Twilley
- Length: 12 hrs and 18 mins
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Publisher's summary
“Frostbite is a perfectly executed cold fusion of science, history, and literary verve...as a fellow nonfiction writer, I bow down. This is how it's done.”—Mary Roach, author of Fuzz and Stiff
An engaging and far-reaching exploration of refrigeration, tracing its evolution from scientific mystery to globe-spanning infrastructure, and an essential investigation into how it has remade our entire relationship with food—for better and for worse
How often do we open the fridge or peer into the freezer with the expectation that we’ll find something fresh and ready to eat? It’s an everyday act—but just a century ago, eating food that had been refrigerated was cause for both fear and excitement. The introduction of artificial refrigeration overturned millennia of dietary history, launching a new chapter in human nutrition. We could now overcome not just rot, but seasonality and geography. Tomatoes in January? Avocados in Shanghai? All possible.
In Frostbite, New Yorker contributor and cohost of the award-winning podcast Gastropod Nicola Twilley takes listeners on a tour of the cold chain from farm to fridge, visiting off-the-beaten-path landmarks such as Missouri’s subterranean cheese caves, the banana-ripening rooms of New York City, and the vast refrigerated tanks that store the nation’s orange juice reserves. Today, nearly three-quarters of everything on the average American plate is processed, shipped, stored, and sold under refrigeration. It’s impossible to make sense of our food system without understanding the all-but-invisible network of thermal control that underpins it. Twilley’s eye-opening book is the first to reveal the transformative impact refrigeration has had on our health and our guts; our farms, tables, kitchens, and cities; global economics and politics; and even our environment.
In the developed world, we’ve reaped the benefits of refrigeration for more than a century, but the costs are catching up with us. We’ve eroded our connection to our food and redefined what “fresh” means. More important, refrigeration is one of the leading contributors to climate change. As the developing world races to build a US-style cold chain, Twilley asks: Can we reduce our dependence on refrigeration? Should we? A deeply researched and reported, original, and entertaining dive into the most important invention in the history of food and drink, Frostbite makes the case for a recalibration of our relationship with the fridge—and how our future might depend on it.
Critic reviews
“An oddly fascinating look at the world of refrigeration . . . Twilley’s book is a delightful mine of meaningful trivia: One learns from her pages, for instance, why pizza and ice cream are shipped separately and why baked goods are cooled gradually (because, as a cold storage warehouse manager told her, “bread will crystallize if it’s cooled too fast”). Throughout, the author’s historical reach traverses seemingly effortlessly from the Roman Empire to 19th-century America . . . A literate treat for tech- and history-inclined foodies.”—Kirkus (starred review)
“The saga of 'domesticating cold' and the many methods of food preservation are spryly communicated by Twilley . . . Information about the evolution and design of modern refrigerators, food waste, the control of fruit ripening, and the subterranean Global Seed Vault ('a Noah's ark for seeds') is noteworthy. This distinctive history tells us not to take our household fridge for granted; it has profoundly affected the composition of our meals and made handy leftovers possible.”—Booklist
“Frostbite is a perfectly executed cold fusion of science, history, and literary verve. You have no idea the fun you’re in for here, the marvelously odd characters and their quietly world-shifting devices–truths and tales that could only have been unearthed through the reporterly perseverance and giddy curiosity of Nicola Twilley. As a fellow nonfiction writer, I bow down. This is how it's done.”—Mary Roach, author of Fuzz and Stiff
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