The Indianapolis journal., 1902-09-21
COLD STORAGE PLANTS
FEW PEOPLE ACQUAINTED WITH
METHODS OF FOOD PRESERVATION.
Establishments in IRdfanapolfs Utfl-
lied by Wholesale Dealers in
Meats and Groceries.

Possibly not one in ten housekeepers in
indianapolis has ever given a thought to
the methods used in the preservation of
the necessities of life that they buy from
day to day. They know in a general way
that they are able to purchase spring
chickens in the dead of winter and fresh
eggs at this time of the year. when hens
are not at their best, but not one in a
dozen of them knows that these things, for
the most part, are brought to the city at
the time that is considered right and
proper by the farmers that supply them
and kept in cold storage until the demand
for them requires their removal to the
shop of the retailer. In these days of Won
derful cold storage systems meats of all
kinds, eggs and butter are kept in perfect
state of preservation at cost of nothing
to the consumer and at comparatively
small outlay for the wholesale dealer.
indianapolis has several big cold storage
plants which are utilized by the wholesale
grocers and meat and poultry sellers, and
visit to one of them is among the interest
ing sights OF the city. The cooling of the
vaults and the storage rooms is accom-
plished by the direct expansion of am
monia forced through a system of pipes
that penetrate the remotest corner of the
smallest vaults in which the provisions are
placed for keeping. There are as many diff
ferent degrees of cold in these rooms and
vaults as there are between Indianapolis
and Winnipeg in midwinter. In none of
them is the temperature below zero. as the
animated might imagine, but in many of
them 1t is kept as nearly at that point as 1t
| m a fai In In,
number of the rooms, however, the weather
is normal at something like 35 degrees
above the starting point on the scale of
the Fahrenheit thermometer.
BEEF SUPPLYING CONCERNS.
Indianapolis is fortunate in having beef
supplying establishments right here at
home. However, there is a corsidera BILE
amount of beef brought here from Chicago
and it comes in big cars that are cooled to
a temperature of about As degrees 1t is
always removed directly from the cars to
room in one OF the cold storage ware
houses-a compartment with the tempera-
ture as a rule at about 35 degrees Beef
Is one of the meats that is never, under any
circumstances, allowed to freeze The de-
mand for it in city as large as Indianapo-
lis Is such that there is no necessity of
keeping 1t in storage for more than three
or four days. Usually ii is taken from the
wholesale establishment to the shop of the
retailer within forty-eight hours after Ii
is delivered from the cars. With poultry
however, the time of the stay in the cold
storage vault is decidedly longer. The
turkeys that epicures at the leading hotels
insist upon eating out of season are. as a
rule, kept in a freezing temperature for at
least six months. Some people that are
qualified by experience to testify as to the
desirability of these meats declare that the
stay in the refrigerators is an advantage
rather than detriment to the quality and
flavor of them, but there are many people
who will disagree with them upon this
point
The preservation of butter and eggs is no
inconsiderabe part of the business of the
cold storage concerns. These are never
frozen. but are kept in rooms where the
temperature is 50 degrees. As the egg is
always commodity of uncertain supply
the term of its stay in the cooling estab-
lishment may be long short, as the de-
mand for ii may warrant. Those offered
by most of the local grocers at the present
time have, for the most part served ST.
berian-libe exile of about four months All
of the eggs sold to the retailers are first
tested by candle. just as the new ones are
examined upon their arrival in the mar
ket.
The life of the men that spend every
weekday in the big cold storage establish
ments is something like that OF explorers
| in the arctic regions. Few of them COM
plain, however, OF the employment that re-
quires them to live in a temperature far
below that which they encounter when they
leave their work in the summer time. 1t is
said that the life of a man in a continuous
low temperature is shorter than that of one
who spends his days where he is subject
to all sorts OF climatic changes. but most
| of the employees of the cold storage plants
are healthy-looking individuals despite all
| scientific reasonings TO the contrary And
| then think what an advantage they have
when the bitter cold days OF the winter
| come along They are so accustomed to the
! freezing temperature that they are quite
in their element when other folks are hop