Appears in
Oxford Companion to Food

By Alan Davidson

Published 2014

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Freezing among all the processes for preservation of food, has the advantage of causing relatively little change in the food.

It is thought of as a recent innovation, but has been used since antiquity, although only in places where the climate is cold enough for it to be possible by natural means. The Inuit (Eskimos) and other peoples of the far north have always stored food by simply burying it in the snow. This natural freezing has been practised in the northern parts of Russia, China, and Japan.