This 18th-century food storage hack could keep produce fresh for months

Here’s some fruit for thought.

A resurfaced video has reintroduced an easy food storage technique that has proven effective at keeping produce ripe for months since the 1700s.

The clip appears on “The Acadian Garden and Apothecary,” an educational YouTube channel that explores food, botany and medicinal plants.

Most consumers store fruits and vegetables in refrigerators, where most varieties stay fresh for several weeks to over a month, per the US Department of Agriculture. Yet, some fresh foods, such as apples and peaches, need time at room temperature for ripening — and forgetting about them can lead rapidly to a rotten bite.

In the 7:35-minute clip, host Dane, a homesteader in Maine, shows viewers a forgotten method to store apples that was once widely used before the advent of refrigeration, thanks to which we can store the Autumn fruits for up to 5 weeks and still remain fresh.

As Danae reaches her hand into a basket to unwrap a seemingly perfectly ripe apple from a newspaper fold, she asks. “So, how is it that these apples are almost 5 months old?”

She goes on to explain the role of apples in the Americas throughout history, which were long considered to be a staple food, particularly as the base ingredient of hard ciders, which were served at the dinner table for diners of all ages.

“It was a really big deal for American households to have apple orchards, and those who did really tended to their apple orchards quite expertly,” Danae began. During this time, they developed time-tested methods to speed up ripening or slow decay.

Citing the book “A Reverence for Wood”, by Eric Sloane, she read that some families were said to have successfully stored fresh apples for two years in their pantries.

To make the most out of this classic technique, she says it’s key to pick the freshest apples — straight from the tree, if possible — as store-bought apples are often sprayed with chemicals that may manipulate the ripening process.

Danae’s preferred method is to wrap each apple individually in newspaper and store the bushel in a basket kept in a cool, dry place.

Other potential mediums Danae suggests include sawdust, grains or heat-dried sand. These aerated materials help to trap air flow and block the transfer of ethylene, a plant hormone that accelerates the lifespan and decay of fruits and vegetables.

Some produce, including apples, pears, bananas, melons and tomatoes, are notably high in ethylene production.

It’s also crucial that the apples are unmarred — no bruises, nicks or signs of insect activity to the flesh — as the decaying process has already begun in these fruits.

For that reason, the key to a long shelf life is the minimize the amount of ethylene emitted into the environment where food is stored.

Danae’s tutorial also included a bonus etymology lesson: “So, that’s really where that saying ‘one bad apple ruins the barrel’ comes from.”