Prepared for a crisis and the unexpected: managing everyday eventualities through food storage practices

Abstract

How and why do people store food? What norms, skills and items are involved in practices of stocking up and keeping food in pantries, refrigerators, and freezers? Despite an increasing interest in everyday food practices within food studies, research on domestic food storage practices is limited. In this article I depart from a practice theoretical framework to explore how food storage practices are made meaningful and involve certain competences and materials, with focus on preparedness. I draw on findings from a study on food storage in Sweden using an open-ended questionnaire and popular consumer magazines. The findings show that storing food is a concrete way of managing daily food work, time, social obligations, and potential societal crises. Households' food storage practices are attempts to manage and control everyday life with its routines and disruptions, and the immediate, distant, or imagined future. However, societal advice for of long-term storage, for example for crises, is challenged by normalized storage spaces, skills, and values attached to food and food storage. I conclude by proposing that a new rationale relating to storage economy may influence the meaning, competences, and materials of food storage practices in favor of household preparedness.

Collective cool

“…However, in contrast to studies on domestic refrigerators and freezers (e.g. Shove & Southerton 2000;Hand & Shove 2007;Rees 2013;Finstad 2014;Sandgren 2018;Marshall 2021) and refrigeration technology in society and everyday life (Englund 1992;Finstad 2014;Lehrmann 2017). Overall, most accounts are journalistic.…”

“…By adapting the research process to the topic, I searched for pieces to compile a multifaceted picture (Ehn, Löfgren & Wilk 2016). The research process was focused on finding traces through written accounts including an openended questionnaire, Swedish consumer magazines, storage investigations, and consumer handbooks that were reviewed as part of a larger project on food storage (see Marshall 2021). I also visited an active freezer locker facility.…”

Strange encounters with ice at US motels – and Nordic translations

“…Although there are many uses for ice cubes, for example for health purposes, the possibility to make your own ice cubes and be able to serve your guests chilled drinks was a major selling point for refrigerators as they became affordable for the upper and middle classes in the 1920s and 1930s. Matilda Marshall (2021) Ice cubes gradually found their way into Swedish households. By the 1950s, domestic refrigerators could be found in almost every Scandinavian home.…”

Pantry Memories

“…Today, Swedish households rely more on refrigerated space and non-ventilated cupboards, and less on home preservation. However, among Swedes there is still a desire for ample storage space -even more storage space than the conditions of contemporary life strictly necessitate -and this is related to a wider emphasis on "preparedness" in everyday life (Marshall 2021).…”