In the world of kitchen design, talk of fridges is normally weighted toward: brand identity, internal volume, configuration, integration, temperature and humidity regulation, interior lighting differentials, and ‘accessories’ (bottle organisers, egg holders, etc). Sometimes we talk about drawers instead of cabinets, and sometimes Day True co-founders, Tony and Hayley, reminisce about the time they considered ditching their honeymoon and putting the money towards a fridge with a viewing window instead. We’ll also admit to enjoying the idea of a ‘mid-life crisis’ fridge – a fridge so lustworthy and expensive that its purchase can only be equated to, and justified by, a more traditional ‘man-of-a-certain-age’ purchase of a sports-car.
We have, however, also long since known that the fastest way to understand someone and their living habits is to take a peek inside their fridge – and we’ll hold our hands up to asking a few clients to send us a ‘shelfie’. We know that we are not alone in this interest: in the subcultures of Reddit a long-established r/FridgeDetective forum (157K members) involves a happy band of sleuths finding joy in the reveal of a succession of cold cases – posted under the essential, and existential, question: “Who am I?”.
Clues are to be found in images of fridges opened to reveal a snapshot from ‘a day in the life’ and, from there, the work starts in identifying locations, ages, stages, culinary prowess, income levels, numbers of occupants and their various occupations, ambitions, predilections, limitations, etc …. There are layers of information and mystery available, few holds-barred in the comments – including some who may get hung up on whether a ‘shelf-stable ingredient’ stored in a fridge is worthy of contemptuous judgment – but you start to get the picture of the wealth of information that these otherwise coolly contained cabinets are in the habit of giving away.
In the high-tone world of high-end publishing, the “Inside Chefs’ Fridges” books (European and North American versions), give due reverence to some celebrated chefs in a showcase of the styles and contents of their domestic fridges. How honest these chefs have been about their daily living habits is open to interpretation – and there is the shimmer of a professional glow-up in the photography appropriate for the pages of a glossy book – but it’s the contents of the fridges more than the fridges themselves, that cater to an audience eager to learn how these gods of the culinary sphere live and eat at home.
There are, of course, chefs to be found elsewhere in the media, confident enough in who they are to admit that, owing to their line of work and the fact that they cook for a living, their fridges rarely contain covetable foodstuffs but might well contain booze and things that support the drinking of it – they may also be those that would prove more fun to hang out with!
The latest scratching of the itch for the fridge-curious is perhaps the full-frontal flaunting of the ‘fridgescape’. Much discussed online and in print journalism – both to admire and to deride. The discussion on the increasingly popular trend has led us down the rabbit holes of considering it as a visual pleasure ground, a work of interior decorating art, a potential for good in reducing food waste and, most recently, to the reports from another popular subreddit, r/AITA (I’ll let you guess, or look up, the acronym) – where a poster posed the question: “AITA for telling my wife I hate her fridgescaping?”. The poor man couldn’t cope with the criticism he was getting for leaving her decorations in ‘disarray’ as he went in for some leftovers. The community – after arguments were aired for both sides, and with many bi-partisanly agreeing that, regardless of their judgment, approaches to communication might be key – apparently determined he was not.
We’ll leave you to determine for yourself what your feelings are about this trend, in the meantime, we will likely continue to take an interest in the contents of your fridge for purely professional reasons – the more we know about what you are storing there, the more we can learn about your likes and habits, and the problems that you may well already – knowingly or otherwise – have been trying to solve. It’s only by gathering this kind of information, that we can best advise on the brands, styles, technology etc that we started out here explaining is our normal wheelhouse. And if fridgescaping turns out to be what turns you and yours on, we swear we will be entirely without judgment on the matter, other than in helping you choose the right fridge for your new hobby.
If you would like to talk about your fridge habits and preferences as part of a design for a kitchen that will work better for how you live today, and with a view on tomorrow – press the button below to arrange a free design consultation with us.
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