单选题
{{B}}Fridge{{/B}}
The fridge is considered a
necessity. It has been so since the 1960s when packaged food first appeared with
the label: "store in the refrigerator."
In my fridgeless Fifties
childhood, I was fed well and healthily. The milkman came daily, the grocer, the
butcher (肉商), the baker, and the ice-cream man delivered two or three times a
week. The Sunday meat would last until Wednesday and surplus (剩余的) bread and
milk became all kinks of cakes. Nothing was wasted, and we were never troubled
by rotten food. Thirty years on, food deliveries have ceases, fresh vegetables
are almost unobtainable in the country.
The invention of the
fridge contributed comparatively little to the art of food preservation. A vast
way of well-tried techniques already existed—natural cooling, drying, smoking,
salting, sugaring, bottling...
What refrigeration did promote
was marketing—marketing hardware and electricity, marketing soft drinks,
marketing dead bodies of animals around the glode in search of search of a good
price.
Consequently, most of the world's fridges are to be
round, not in the tropics where they might prove useful, but in the wealthy
countries with mild temperatures where they are climatically amost unnecessary.
Every winter, millions of fridges hum away continuously, and at vast expense,
busily maintaining an artificially-cooled space inside an artificially-heated
house—while outside, nature provides the desired temperature free of
charg.
The fridge's effect upon the environment has been
evident, while its contribution to human happiness has been insignificant. If
you don't believe me, try it yourself, invest in a food cabinet and turn off
your fridge next winter. You may miss the hamburgers (汉堡包), but at least you'll
get rid of that terrible hum.