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Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves
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, easily taken for granted, but just a century ago, eating food that had been refrigerated was cause for both fear and excitement. Banquets were held just so guests could enjoy the novelty of eggs, butter, and apples that had been preserved for months in cold storage—and demonstrate that such zombie foods were not deadly. The introduction of artificial refrigeration overturned millennia of dietary history, launching an entirely new chapter in human nutrition. We could now overcome not just rot, but also seasonality and geography. Tomatoes in January? Avocados in Shanghai? All possible.
In FROSTBITE, New Yorker contributor and co-host of the award-winning podcast Gastropod Nicola Twilley takes readers with her on a tour of the cold chain from farm to fridge, visiting such off-the-beaten-track landmarks as Missouri’s subterranean cheese caves, the banana-ripening rooms of New York City, and the vast refrigerated tanks that store the nation’s OJ reserves. Today, more than 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 as Twilley soon discovers, the costs are catching up with us. We’ve eroded our connection to our food, extending the distance between producers and consumers and redefining what “fresh� really means. More importantly, refrigeration is one of the leading contributors to climate change. As the developing world races to build a U.S.-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.
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, easily taken for granted, but just a century ago, eating food that had been refrigerated was cause for both fear and excitement. Banquets were held just so guests could enjoy the novelty of eggs, butter, and apples that had been preserved for months in cold storage—and demonstrate that such zombie foods were not deadly. The introduction of artificial refrigeration overturned millennia of dietary history, launching an entirely new chapter in human nutrition. We could now overcome not just rot, but also seasonality and geography. Tomatoes in January? Avocados in Shanghai? All possible.
In FROSTBITE, New Yorker contributor and co-host of the award-winning podcast Gastropod Nicola Twilley takes readers with her on a tour of the cold chain from farm to fridge, visiting such off-the-beaten-track landmarks as Missouri’s subterranean cheese caves, the banana-ripening rooms of New York City, and the vast refrigerated tanks that store the nation’s OJ reserves. Today, more than 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 as Twilley soon discovers, the costs are catching up with us. We’ve eroded our connection to our food, extending the distance between producers and consumers and redefining what “fresh� really means. More importantly, refrigeration is one of the leading contributors to climate change. As the developing world races to build a U.S.-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.
400 pages, Hardcover
First published June 25, 2024
494 people are currently reading
9,190 people want to read
About the author
Nicola Twilley
3books36followersNicola Twilley is author of Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves (Penguin Press, June 2024), and co-host of the award-winning Gastropod podcast, which looks at food through the lens of history and science, and which is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network in partnership with Eater. Her first book, Until Proven Safe: The History and Future of Quarantine, was co-authored with Geoff Manaugh and was named one of the best books of 2021 by Time Magazine, NPR, the Guardian, and the Financial Times. She is a contributing writer at The New Yorker and the author of Edible Geography. She lives in Los Angeles.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 237 reviews
December 12, 2024
3.5 stars
An engaging work of journalistic nonfiction, mixing the author’s own visits to all kinds of little-known places along the modern food supply chain, with a history of food preservation in general and refrigeration particularly. I learned from it, and the author’s writing style is strong while her research is informative, quirky, and seemingly thorough. Some parts of the book went on a little long for my personal taste, but that shouldn’t discourage anyone interested in the topic!
Some interesting facts I learned:
- Canning, which I had assumed to be an age-old folk method of food preservation, is actually quite recent: invented by a particular man around the turn of the 19th century to win a prize offered by Napoleon. Older methods include drying, smoking, salting, pickling, and for fruits, candying.
- Until well into the 19th century, using ice to preserve food didn’t even make the list (outside of icy climates, one presumes). It didn’t tend to preserve food for more than a few weeks (meat lasted far longer if smoked or salted), it left meltwater everywhere, and before steam travel, you couldn’t transport ice far or fast enough to use it anyplace that actually needed it. Even rich people’s icehouses, when they had them, weren’t used to preserve food, but to make ice cream and chill their drinks.
- In fact, at the beginning of refrigeration, people were highly skeptical—that just didn’t seem fresh—and with some justification: every food needs to be cooled in a different way and to a different temperature to keep properly, all of which had to be discovered through experimentation. Packaging can also be more high tech than you think: don’t open a bagged salad to let the air out! That packaging is specially designed to let in and out all the right chemicals for the different ingredients inside, to preserve the salad as long as possible.
- The reason food goes bad, by the way, is that it’s alive—or at least, the cells inside it are. They continue carrying out biological processes until it dies, at which point you wouldn’t want to eat it. Basically, you have to eat the food before it finishes consuming itself.
- Refrigeration certainly changes people’s diets, as can be seen in countries where people are just acquiring it today, but there’s surprisingly little evidence that it improves them: for instance, through increased consumption of fruits and veggies. What it certainly does is allow for economies of scale, to feed large urban populations and to eliminate the age-old seasonality of food. It also tends to homogenize the food, even when the mass market varieties taste worse, as with tomatoes.
There’s also just a whole supply chain world here that most people know nothing about, from banana ripening rooms (bananas can be shipped around the world by keeping them from ripening till they arrive, them giving them ethylene so they’ll all ripen at once) to former mines used as food storage warehouses. And the author geeks out about all of it, which is a fun change of pace from the more depressing parts of the book (all the energy going into food storage is a significant contributor to climate change, while economically convenient monocropping is terrible for local ecosystems). There are some reasons for optimism, however, with alternate food preservation methods also under development. No doubt we’ll all be as skeptical of them as people 100 years ago were of refrigeration!
At any rate, certainly worth a read for those interested in learning more about how the world works, from biology to the logistics of the supply chain. If some sections exceeded my interest a bit, it’s nonetheless a good presentation of a topic highly relevant to us all.
An engaging work of journalistic nonfiction, mixing the author’s own visits to all kinds of little-known places along the modern food supply chain, with a history of food preservation in general and refrigeration particularly. I learned from it, and the author’s writing style is strong while her research is informative, quirky, and seemingly thorough. Some parts of the book went on a little long for my personal taste, but that shouldn’t discourage anyone interested in the topic!
Some interesting facts I learned:
- Canning, which I had assumed to be an age-old folk method of food preservation, is actually quite recent: invented by a particular man around the turn of the 19th century to win a prize offered by Napoleon. Older methods include drying, smoking, salting, pickling, and for fruits, candying.
- Until well into the 19th century, using ice to preserve food didn’t even make the list (outside of icy climates, one presumes). It didn’t tend to preserve food for more than a few weeks (meat lasted far longer if smoked or salted), it left meltwater everywhere, and before steam travel, you couldn’t transport ice far or fast enough to use it anyplace that actually needed it. Even rich people’s icehouses, when they had them, weren’t used to preserve food, but to make ice cream and chill their drinks.
- In fact, at the beginning of refrigeration, people were highly skeptical—that just didn’t seem fresh—and with some justification: every food needs to be cooled in a different way and to a different temperature to keep properly, all of which had to be discovered through experimentation. Packaging can also be more high tech than you think: don’t open a bagged salad to let the air out! That packaging is specially designed to let in and out all the right chemicals for the different ingredients inside, to preserve the salad as long as possible.
- The reason food goes bad, by the way, is that it’s alive—or at least, the cells inside it are. They continue carrying out biological processes until it dies, at which point you wouldn’t want to eat it. Basically, you have to eat the food before it finishes consuming itself.
- Refrigeration certainly changes people’s diets, as can be seen in countries where people are just acquiring it today, but there’s surprisingly little evidence that it improves them: for instance, through increased consumption of fruits and veggies. What it certainly does is allow for economies of scale, to feed large urban populations and to eliminate the age-old seasonality of food. It also tends to homogenize the food, even when the mass market varieties taste worse, as with tomatoes.
There’s also just a whole supply chain world here that most people know nothing about, from banana ripening rooms (bananas can be shipped around the world by keeping them from ripening till they arrive, them giving them ethylene so they’ll all ripen at once) to former mines used as food storage warehouses. And the author geeks out about all of it, which is a fun change of pace from the more depressing parts of the book (all the energy going into food storage is a significant contributor to climate change, while economically convenient monocropping is terrible for local ecosystems). There are some reasons for optimism, however, with alternate food preservation methods also under development. No doubt we’ll all be as skeptical of them as people 100 years ago were of refrigeration!
At any rate, certainly worth a read for those interested in learning more about how the world works, from biology to the logistics of the supply chain. If some sections exceeded my interest a bit, it’s nonetheless a good presentation of a topic highly relevant to us all.
October 31, 2024
We expect to be able to eat any food at any time of the year. With such variety throughout the year it’s easy to forget that such availability was not possible for most of human history. This book reports of the history, science, and how daily life today is dependent on a combination of refrigeration, controlled environments, and chemical treatments for the food to reach our homes.
The book also reminds the reader of the environmental cost expended to keep this system functioning. Refrigeration requires energy and approximately seventy percent of our food is exposed to it at some time during during its acquisition, preparation, transportation, and delivery contributing to a significant carbon foot print.
Apples, potatoes, avocados, and especially bananas are subjected to complicated sequences of controlled environments and gases that at first delays their ripening and then later stimulates the ripening process at the desired time. All this is amazing, but the author claims we have forgotten the taste of truly fresh food and its nutritiousness is compromised. (I think year around availability is worth the sacrifice.)
The following excerpt suggests "to vegetable" as a verb to describe the modern process of marketing fruits and vegetables:
The book also reminds the reader of the environmental cost expended to keep this system functioning. Refrigeration requires energy and approximately seventy percent of our food is exposed to it at some time during during its acquisition, preparation, transportation, and delivery contributing to a significant carbon foot print.
Apples, potatoes, avocados, and especially bananas are subjected to complicated sequences of controlled environments and gases that at first delays their ripening and then later stimulates the ripening process at the desired time. All this is amazing, but the author claims we have forgotten the taste of truly fresh food and its nutritiousness is compromised. (I think year around availability is worth the sacrifice.)
The following excerpt suggests "to vegetable" as a verb to describe the modern process of marketing fruits and vegetables:
... the phrase "to vegetable" encompasses the way in which humans take a plant and breed it so it can be harvested when it's super immature so that it's tender and lovely and we want to eat it, but also how we then reverse engineer its metabolism so that the twilight years of that harvested fruit or leaf will extend indefinitely.The following excerpt explores some cultural influences resulting from wide food availability.
... Of course, as in Oscar Wilde's Fable of eternal youth, when we received the thing we ask for, it's often accompanied by a host of unexpected and frequently undesirable consequences. Refrigerated storage allows perishable bananas, apples, and avocados to circulate as commodities. Controlled atmosphere warehouses transform seasonal gluts into accumulated capital. Ripening rooms enable demand to drive supply. A refrigerated supply chain is the reason we eat imported bananas rather than North America's own semi-tropical fruit, the pawpaw. Control the atmosphere storage created the Cosmic Crisp and its influencer-led launch. Ripening rooms fueled avocado toast's ascent to millennial meme, and frozen juice made OJ a mainstay of the breakfast buffet.Below is a long excerpt about a proposed refrigerator and kitchen with a variety of special environments for optimum storage.
Designer Jihan Rio describes her mission as to save food from the fridge. It began with an observation upon the advent of the mechanical refrigerator, not only did once common food storage and preservation spaces like the root cellar or pantry vanish, but so too did our appreciation of food as fellow organic matter, an awareness that each carrot or egg is also living tissue with its own metabolic processes and peculiarities.
Seen from this perspective, although it might be a convenient one-stop solution for us, for much of the food we eat, the fridge does not necessarily represent an upgrade. The diversity of household food storage options in the past allowed our predecessors to keep different foods in the environment that best fit each item's unique needs. Soft cheeses like brie or camembert prefer conditions that are more humid and warmer than the standard fridge. Marble slab in a cupboard beneath the stairs was ideal for them. The cool dark damp of a root cellars suited the storage requirements of potatoes perfectly. In the refrigerator, they tend to darken and become unpleasantly sweet while exposure to daylight at room temperature causes them to turn green and sprout.
Perishable foods don't necessarily play well stored together, the ethylene emitted by apples causes bell peppers and cucumbers to soften and rot while milk and eggs can absorb the aromatic chemicals emitted by nearby cabbages or mangoes. Food producers know this perfectly well. Think of the vast, controlled atmosphere Apple warehouses of Washington State or muster purveyor's meat locker in the Bronx with its carefully regulated temperature and humidity and its battery of fans to manage airflow. Fruit and vegetable wholesalers like Gabriella Dorigo wouldn't dream of storing avocados under the same conditions as berries. Post-harvest physiologist Natalia Falagan told me she shudders whenever she sees a peach in a home refrigerator where the temperature is smack in the middle of what she called the stone fruit killing zone.
Wondering how to make this understanding of fresh food? How we should treat it and how long it should last? Common knowledge rather than the preserve of experts led Jihan Rio to her solution. A set of ingenious wall-mounted and countertop units that draw on traditional pre-refrigeration food storage techniques. Fruits, vegetables and eggs all would be freed from our monolithic fridges and instead distributed in a series of carefully tailored environmental niches around the kitchen. After all, beer and ice cream need to be cold, but produce doesn't. It just has to be preserved. Rio, who is currently at work on the perfect housing for tomatoes, explained that she bases her designs on scientific research, but also on conversations with farmers and grannies.
Her root vegetable unit is a U-shaped shelf made of beeswax treated maple. The glass panel holds the damp sand in which carrots and leeks are buried alongside a little funnel to top up moisture levels as needed. It almost looks as though the vegetables are still in the ground, ready to be harvested with just the orange tops and feathery green fronds of the carrot visible above the sand surface. And that is precisely the point. Rio has found that the root vegetables last longer and taste better stored upright in slightly damp, loose sand because it mimics their growing conditions. Other units include a beautiful marble dish carved into a circular stepwell in which cabbages and Romanesco broccoli can sit with just their stems in a thin layer of cool water almost like a birdbath for brassicas. An enclosed potato drawer cleverly vents to an apple storage shelf above taking advantage of the fact that the ethylene emitted by apples inhibits sprouting in potatoes.
Rather than throwing everything in the crisper drawer of their refrigerator. A shopper returning home to their Rio designed kitchen would simply slot carrots into their sandy shelf unit and place bell peppers on another specially humidified shelf. Put their apples away on top of the potato drawer and sit their cauliflower on its marble throne.
June 6, 2024
I was lucky enough to get an advance copy of this interesting and entertaining look at the history and science of refrigeration. Ms Twilley's style reminded me a bit of the Mary Roach books that teach while also delighting. I had not previously contemplated how much being able to chill food expanded our options. Like other technology our cold craving has had an enormous impact on the planet, not all of it good. Emerging technology may offer us options going forward to continue to enjoy the benefits with less impact on the environment. Highly recommended!
October 8, 2024
i guess i really care about refrigeration infrastructure now
July 8, 2024
I enjoyed this deep dive into a topic I had no idea how little I knew about. Apples at the grocery store are a year old?!?!? The Irish Revolution was instigated in part due to the destabilizing forces of the cold chain!?!? So many great nuggets of information that change the way I see the world and have made me not shut up about refrigeration! Gem! Can’t wait to see more of this authors work in the future. I only wish that there was more about how manufactured cold had impacted other spaces (air conditioning , medical supplies, etc.).
August 3, 2024
Absolutely fascinating—and dare I say riveting! This book is about refrigeration, yes, but it sweeps through history, the modern food chain, and looks ahead to what might be next as we look at the energy it takes to preserve food, and the amount of food waste on a household level. I’m walking away understanding more about the science of food and American culture through the lens of food. I recommend the audiobook for this one.
February 13, 2025
Far from frosty and frigid, Twilley's narration takes on a fiery and energetic pace as she whisks the reader from underground cheese caves in Missouri, to first generation fridge millionaires in China, to dusty hot Rwanda and their efforts in cold chain creation, all the while switching back to the past, chronicling the various discoveries and methods in food preservation and manufacturing cold.
I was wary at first, since science nonfiction is not my preferred cup of tea, but Twilley's seamless blending of strange and fun facts alongside thoughtful introspection (backed by consultation with historians and anthropologists) leads to not just technical knowledge of how refrigeration works, but the effect that this relatively new technology has impacted our planet and its inhabitants - for the better and for the worse.
The epilogue was chilling (pun intended) but also hopeful. Basically, artificial cooling is warming our planet to potentially disastrous results. There is a more environmentally friendly solution beyond refrigeration ie. Apeel technology, it's just a matter of money (because, of course) and whether it's profitable for businesses to integrate into our current food infrastructure. Considering human history, we only change when we've reached a critical point, so uh...here's hoping LOL. Overall, this book was a great blend of history, science and pop culture.
February 10, 2025
Learned more about the cold food chain than I ever thought possible! �(or perhaps wanted to know) We would have the most boring diets without refrigeration and all of us would have scurvy and rickets 😉
June 14, 2024
AUDIOBOOK REVIEW
Thank you PRHaudio for the gifted audiobook. All thoughts are my own.
Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves
By Nicola Twilley
Pub date: 6/25
Verdict: Loved it- learned a ton about a topic I knew little about
At a glance:
Nonfiction, history & future of refrigeration, read by the author, history, food science, and technology
FROSTBITE covers an array of topics connected to health, history, food science, technology, and environmental studies. I chose this book on a whim� I wasn’t sure if it’d hold my interest, but we all have refrigerators and I was curious about the topic. I’m so glad I gave it a shot because it’s incredibly well done, backed up by tons of research, and the information literally affects everyone. Twilley’s passion for the topic is apparent and her narration kept me engaged the whole time.
Refrigeration solves many problems from long ago but it may be harming our health in new ways. This invention has led to mass consumerism and the author delves into the irony of an appliance designed to preserve food leading to mass amounts of food waste.
The history of refrigeration impacted aspects of life I had never considered; for instance, it changed how people shop and plan meals, ultimately coinciding with more women joining the workforce. I also learned a ton about how scientists work to preserve food in new ways, using refrigeration as a tool that affects the nutrients in our food. The scale to which refrigeration has changed everything we eat is astounding. Even the foods we don’t keep in the fridge at home are transported and stored in facilities dependent on refrigeration.
This isn’t a hopeless book, it’s eye-opening and left me with a lot to think about. The idea that if we grew our own food we’d be inclined to eat more and waste less is a beautiful thing to consider. This is definitely a must read!
Thank you PRHaudio for the gifted audiobook. All thoughts are my own.
Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves
By Nicola Twilley
Pub date: 6/25
Verdict: Loved it- learned a ton about a topic I knew little about
At a glance:
Nonfiction, history & future of refrigeration, read by the author, history, food science, and technology
FROSTBITE covers an array of topics connected to health, history, food science, technology, and environmental studies. I chose this book on a whim� I wasn’t sure if it’d hold my interest, but we all have refrigerators and I was curious about the topic. I’m so glad I gave it a shot because it’s incredibly well done, backed up by tons of research, and the information literally affects everyone. Twilley’s passion for the topic is apparent and her narration kept me engaged the whole time.
Refrigeration solves many problems from long ago but it may be harming our health in new ways. This invention has led to mass consumerism and the author delves into the irony of an appliance designed to preserve food leading to mass amounts of food waste.
The history of refrigeration impacted aspects of life I had never considered; for instance, it changed how people shop and plan meals, ultimately coinciding with more women joining the workforce. I also learned a ton about how scientists work to preserve food in new ways, using refrigeration as a tool that affects the nutrients in our food. The scale to which refrigeration has changed everything we eat is astounding. Even the foods we don’t keep in the fridge at home are transported and stored in facilities dependent on refrigeration.
This isn’t a hopeless book, it’s eye-opening and left me with a lot to think about. The idea that if we grew our own food we’d be inclined to eat more and waste less is a beautiful thing to consider. This is definitely a must read!
July 23, 2024
One of the most fascinating books I’ve read in a while!
February 4, 2025
So much more interesting and informative thatn I thought it was going to be. Fun read, thoroughly researched and well written, a must read for anyone who uses a refrigerator!
January 31, 2025
A truly fantastic book that sheds a lot of insight in how our food system and diet have changed over recent times!
February 23, 2025
This is one of those books that covers something you hardly think about and therefore you learn so much from. Really enjoyed.
This book focuses on the history of refrigeration and freezing and their far reaching implications. To name a few big themes: it changed political landscapes, changed what we eat when we eat it, changed nutritional content of the foods we eat, extinguished certain varietals of fruits and vegetables in favor of ones that can withstand the cold chain, contributed to a more egalitarian society, and influences food prices and different grocery stores - Whole Foods produce is more expensive than Walmart not only because it’s higher quality but also because its access to the cold chain infrastructure is weaker.
The technological and food science advances that made leaps and bounds in a relatively short period of time is fascinating. Especially considering how seamlessly refrigeration has melded in the lives of us in the developed world. But equally as fascinating is how uneven the developed world has acquired cold storage - China as a whole is a few steps behind the US on that front.
The impact on human health long term is unclear. By focusing on more sterile and cold preserved foods, are we shifting our microbiome diversity? And does this then negatively impact health? Justin Sonnenberg would say so.
She concludes with a critique on the sustainability and net good of refrigeration - while it may seem like only positive things came from cold storage, this is not the case.
Overall it was well researched and unbiased. It was a bit long and dense at points, though.
This book focuses on the history of refrigeration and freezing and their far reaching implications. To name a few big themes: it changed political landscapes, changed what we eat when we eat it, changed nutritional content of the foods we eat, extinguished certain varietals of fruits and vegetables in favor of ones that can withstand the cold chain, contributed to a more egalitarian society, and influences food prices and different grocery stores - Whole Foods produce is more expensive than Walmart not only because it’s higher quality but also because its access to the cold chain infrastructure is weaker.
The technological and food science advances that made leaps and bounds in a relatively short period of time is fascinating. Especially considering how seamlessly refrigeration has melded in the lives of us in the developed world. But equally as fascinating is how uneven the developed world has acquired cold storage - China as a whole is a few steps behind the US on that front.
The impact on human health long term is unclear. By focusing on more sterile and cold preserved foods, are we shifting our microbiome diversity? And does this then negatively impact health? Justin Sonnenberg would say so.
She concludes with a critique on the sustainability and net good of refrigeration - while it may seem like only positive things came from cold storage, this is not the case.
Overall it was well researched and unbiased. It was a bit long and dense at points, though.
August 9, 2024
It's been a desperately hot and humid summer here, but that has made it a wonderful time to read about the "cold chain" of refrigerated storage in Frostbite. In this interesting work, Nicola Twilley gives lots of details about refrigeration and how our food arrives in the grocery store. She works in a frozen food warehouse for a while; I've always thought this might be sort of a fun job (I do like the cold) but it turns out to be quite dangerous and not a lot of people can manage more than a day or two. She watches while an engineer and co-founder of an HVAC start-up builds a refrigerator in his garage and I was surprised at how easy it was (as long as you've got the four crucial components). There is a lot about the history of ice, icehouses, storage and transportation before refrigeration in its current state existed. These parts were probably my least favorite, but there are so many facts that I wasn't even aware of that I did enjoy. I knew apples were often picked and stored for a year or more before they were available in the grocery store, but I didn't know that King's Hawaiian Rolls arrived at the cold warehouse warm from the bakery and were cooled gradually to avoid condensation and stored for several months. I was not aware that warehouses exist that are not just cold but also climate-controlled with different atmospheres to selectively ripen produce like bananas and avocados.
The author asks the question, "Has refrigeration made us healthier?", looks at ways that the future may not be refrigerated, and visits the Global seed Vault in Svalbard ("refrigeration's great promise to preserve the future of food"). All in all, this was a fascinating look at a subject I had simply taken for granted that answered more questions than I had ever imagined.
The author asks the question, "Has refrigeration made us healthier?", looks at ways that the future may not be refrigerated, and visits the Global seed Vault in Svalbard ("refrigeration's great promise to preserve the future of food"). All in all, this was a fascinating look at a subject I had simply taken for granted that answered more questions than I had ever imagined.
September 13, 2024
Thorough account of how the artificial cryosphere has changed diet, agriculture, economics, and transportation. I had little awareness of the cold storage supply line that supports my local grocery and fills my household refrigerator. There is much to ponder about the ramifications of this technology.
September 8, 2024
A neat historical and scientific look at a very nichey but ubiquitous subject: the cold chain.
March 29, 2025
Solid 4+ book - I learned so many facts and had a great time reading it. I think Twilley does a good job covering a ton of history and technical content with a tone and style that's still accesible. I have mixed feelings about the authors thesis and question the feasibility of some of her suggestions but overall she really delivers what the title promises.
I wish there had been a little bit more critique and analysis of market (capitalism), race, and class structures throughout. It's definitely sprinkled in but I want more!
I wish there had been a little bit more critique and analysis of market (capitalism), race, and class structures throughout. It's definitely sprinkled in but I want more!
April 2, 2025
Modernity!
March 2, 2025
Weird to say the history of refrigeration was riveting.
April 8, 2025
Interesting read covering science, agriculture, economics, history, and other topics! It felt a bit disorganized at times, but overall an enjoyable and educational read!
November 20, 2024
On a whim I borrowed Frostbite from the library. It's fascinating. Nicola Twilley answered questions I didn't know I had. There's a giant underground cheese cave in Missouri. Ice houses still operate in Maine where they cut ice blocks from frozen lakes. Twilley follows all aspects of refrigeration, from its conception to present day. Her writing is informative and compelling.
March 11, 2025
Three and a half stars. Interesting. If you were at all interested in the subject I would recommend it. Not something I would recommend to all my friends but should be a good discussion at an upcoming book club. I don’t do much nonfiction and I definitely had to slow down my reading pace a bit with this one.
March 12, 2025
Refrigeration seems like one of the more mundane aspects of modern life in the West as we rarely seem to think about it unless the appliance in the kitchen dies or the power is out, but this book caught my eye because it's not mundane. It's pretty much a modern miracle. From food to film (yes, the Kodak kind that hospitals need for radiology), the chain that things move along to serve us is amazing. This book was a fascinating look at the origin and applications of refrigeration, and I learned quite a lot. The first two-thirds of the book was the most interesting to me, and there's also a very comprehensive appendix.
I would recommend this and would read another by Twilley. Also, points for the very enticing cover. I'll never look at those frozen berries so nonchalantly in my freezer again.
I would recommend this and would read another by Twilley. Also, points for the very enticing cover. I'll never look at those frozen berries so nonchalantly in my freezer again.
August 21, 2024
Interesting but not nearly as compelling as her podcast.
July 31, 2024
Average book but fun to read in the hottest summer heat wave. It's just the kind of knowledge that you don't know you don't know until you finally know. But it's not such useful knowledge to know so maybe I will forget it sooner than expected?
October 23, 2024
Very interesting. Walks you through a lot of food history which makes sense. Great for anyone interested in food or even just the history of civilization. Highly recommend.
February 23, 2025
A brilliantly researched, engagingly written, fact-packed investigation into refrigeration and its impact on food: how it is farmed, transported, stored, and consumed. Over seven chunky chapters, we learn about the multifaceted history and development of cold-chains (refrigerated supply chains) and their impact on consumption habits. The stories Twilley managed to find are fantastic � I can hardly imagine better ones if they were made up. A woman defying gender-based discrimination in the early 20th Century to pioneer the safe preservation of perishable foods; a self-taught, mixed-race mechanic in Minnesota designing “Thermo King� refrigerated trucks. Great material.
Beyond talking to a whole cast of characters in the refrigeration space � scientists, founders, farmers, the lot � Twilley was also able to conduct some archival research, survey scientific literature, and visit various places around the world, all of which makes for a richly detailed and authoritative account. Yes, it is primarily addressed to an American audience, and most of the content has an American focus (I had to laugh at the fact that the Salinas Valley is known as the Salad Bowl of the World because it produces 70% of the ’s lettuce). But to make a concise book you also need to be targeted, especially given the global scale of the subject material, which Twilley manages to do very well.
My gripes with the book are small. The book is so full � too full, perhaps � of facts and figures that I hardly knew which ones to focus on and remember and which ones to acknowledge and forget. Even with its focus, it still sprawls quite a lot. Perhaps as a result, some of the historical insights, although in general valid, are a bit too sweeping and vague for my taste. (“The 1800s were also the moment when Western governments began to count everything� is an example that stood out for me). I would have liked to see more time and nuance dedicated to them; and this isn’t just an issue for the historical episodes. It would also have been nice to get a sense of why we should believe the people Twilley talked to. Craig the cliometrician makes some claims about the effects of refrigeration on diet � does he represent scholarly consensus? Maybe this is too much to ask, and this kind of contextualization would have probably stolen space from the ethnographic episodes Twilley collected. The latter are definitely the book’s strength, and so I don’t mind the cursory treatment of historical and scholarly context as much.
The book’s overall takeaway is great. Refrigeration has shaped the way people have produced and consumed food, not to mention moved it around and stored it. Yet cold chains carry huge ecological costs, both in their presence and in their absence. Whilst Twilley rightfully notes that only a masochist would wish for a return to pre-refrigerated days, and that refrigeration has brought liberation and economic prosperity, it is still important to continue thinking about and pursuing alternatives. “Our food system is frostbitten�, she declares, “it has been injured by its exposure to cold� (281).
“Jasus! I am kilt. The coald shivers is on to me� (223).
Beyond talking to a whole cast of characters in the refrigeration space � scientists, founders, farmers, the lot � Twilley was also able to conduct some archival research, survey scientific literature, and visit various places around the world, all of which makes for a richly detailed and authoritative account. Yes, it is primarily addressed to an American audience, and most of the content has an American focus (I had to laugh at the fact that the Salinas Valley is known as the Salad Bowl of the World because it produces 70% of the ’s lettuce). But to make a concise book you also need to be targeted, especially given the global scale of the subject material, which Twilley manages to do very well.
My gripes with the book are small. The book is so full � too full, perhaps � of facts and figures that I hardly knew which ones to focus on and remember and which ones to acknowledge and forget. Even with its focus, it still sprawls quite a lot. Perhaps as a result, some of the historical insights, although in general valid, are a bit too sweeping and vague for my taste. (“The 1800s were also the moment when Western governments began to count everything� is an example that stood out for me). I would have liked to see more time and nuance dedicated to them; and this isn’t just an issue for the historical episodes. It would also have been nice to get a sense of why we should believe the people Twilley talked to. Craig the cliometrician makes some claims about the effects of refrigeration on diet � does he represent scholarly consensus? Maybe this is too much to ask, and this kind of contextualization would have probably stolen space from the ethnographic episodes Twilley collected. The latter are definitely the book’s strength, and so I don’t mind the cursory treatment of historical and scholarly context as much.
The book’s overall takeaway is great. Refrigeration has shaped the way people have produced and consumed food, not to mention moved it around and stored it. Yet cold chains carry huge ecological costs, both in their presence and in their absence. Whilst Twilley rightfully notes that only a masochist would wish for a return to pre-refrigerated days, and that refrigeration has brought liberation and economic prosperity, it is still important to continue thinking about and pursuing alternatives. “Our food system is frostbitten�, she declares, “it has been injured by its exposure to cold� (281).
“Jasus! I am kilt. The coald shivers is on to me� (223).
December 25, 2024
After reading this book I'll never look at out-of-season produce the same way again. From pond ice packed in straw to behemoth double-door stainless steel refrigerators that dominate suburban kitchens, Twilley expertly and engagingly describes how the quest to refrigerate and freeze food has changed the history of countries and completely re-shaped diets—for better and worse. The ability to ship meat to the UK decimated sheep farming in Britain allowing its overgrazed grassland to revert to natural vegetation. Irish tenant farmers left their country and those who stayed behind blamed their situation on the British, increasing support for Irish nationalism. Decades later, the advent of refrigerated air freight made it possible to ship "junk fish" tuna from the US eastern seaboard to Japan for use in sushi, which itself soon gained an international following. Bananas, once expensive and rare, became commonplace in America in just a few years due to refrigeration. I learned that the filleted Alaskan salmon that I served recently at a Canadian west coast dinner party had likely already been to China and since filleting there was cheaper—a feat made possible by refrigeration. And those big fridges? Our deep desire to preserve food actually results in more waste as so much food gets pushed to the back of the fridge and the bottom of the freezer that it looses nutrients, is forgotten and is ultimately thrown out.
September 11, 2024
This book is fascinating. It takes something that we think is very simple (refrigeration) provides a historical, environmental, and political understanding of its significance. So many things in this book made me really think.
My wife and I grow quite a bit of our own food. Personally, I think more people need to get into gardening in whatever, space they have. It may be the only thing that saves us ;-).
I thought the book was well written and used narrative to support the ideas. Lots of great stories. Tons of little tidbits of interesting information that I had never thought about. For example, she writes about European cities that regulate the size of at home refrigerators. This is done so people do not over Shop. This supports the local community. Small refrigerators, make good cities and good cities require only small refrigerators. Shop local!
After reading this book, I feel like I have a real understanding of the evolution of farming and how we feed the citizens of our world. The cold chain is quite fragile and quite young. I look forward to seeing how it evolves.
My wife and I grow quite a bit of our own food. Personally, I think more people need to get into gardening in whatever, space they have. It may be the only thing that saves us ;-).
I thought the book was well written and used narrative to support the ideas. Lots of great stories. Tons of little tidbits of interesting information that I had never thought about. For example, she writes about European cities that regulate the size of at home refrigerators. This is done so people do not over Shop. This supports the local community. Small refrigerators, make good cities and good cities require only small refrigerators. Shop local!
After reading this book, I feel like I have a real understanding of the evolution of farming and how we feed the citizens of our world. The cold chain is quite fragile and quite young. I look forward to seeing how it evolves.
October 7, 2024
Finished Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves by Nicola Twilley, co-host of the podcast Gastropod and an award winning contributor to The New Yorker. I spent a career in the food industry and even so I learned a lot from this book. The book begins with cooling as preservation in antiquity and ends with third world countries unable to feed their people with over half of their crops rotting because of no food refrigeration system. The book is filled with interesting insights, the impact of refrigeration on the environment, food waste caused by excess capacity home refrigerators that encourage over purchasing that never gets consumed, the cellular biology of produce, that fruits and vegetables continue respiration after harvest and how, chemicals and refrigeration permit out of season produce and much more. The most troubling part of the book is the bleak outlook for the planet if the ”cold chain� is interrupted. An eye opening book
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