Storing fruit and vegetables properly can double how long they last. The rule that decides almost everything is temperature: produce that grew in a warm climate, like tomatoes, aubergines, potatoes and bananas, suffers below 10 degrees, while leafy greens, berries and courgettes need the fridge to survive more than two days.
What should never go in the fridge?
Tomatoes lose aroma below 12 degrees and turn mealy: keep them on the counter, stalk side down. Potatoes turn their starch into sugar in the cold, which makes them sweet and makes them darken when fried: keep them in a dark, ventilated place at 7 to 10 degrees, away from onions. Onions and garlic want dry air and darkness, never a plastic bag. Bananas blacken in the fridge. Melons, peaches and avocados only go in once they are ripe, and only to stop them going further.
What needs the fridge, and where?
Leafy greens, salad, herbs, courgettes, aubergines, peppers, broccoli, carrots and berries all keep longer at 4 degrees. The drawer at the bottom is the most humid part of the fridge and the right place for vegetables. Berries are the exception to humidity: they mould fast, so keep them in an open container, unwashed until the moment you eat them.
Why does some fruit ruin the fruit next to it?
Because it releases ethylene, a gas that speeds up ripening. Apples, pears, bananas, peaches, apricots, melons and tomatoes are the strongest producers. Keep them away from potatoes, onions, leafy greens and carrots, which spoil faster in their company. The same effect is useful in reverse: put a hard avocado in a paper bag with an apple and it ripens in a day.
How do you keep herbs and salad alive?
Treat parsley and basil like flowers: stems in a glass with two centimetres of water, basil on the counter, parsley in the fridge with a bag over the top. Salad lasts a week if you wash it, dry it properly and store it in a closed box with a sheet of kitchen paper that absorbs the condensation.
What can you freeze, and when?
Almost any vegetable, if you freeze it before it declines rather than after. Courgettes, peppers, beans and broccoli keep better blanched for two minutes and cooled in ice water first. Bread freezes perfectly in slices. Herbs can be chopped into an ice cube tray with oil. The right moment to freeze is the day you realise you will not eat it in time, not three days later.