Urban Root Cellars: The Next Trend in Food Preservation? The Globe and Mail

Trying to eat locally grown produce is easy in the summer, when farmers' markets are bursting with fruits and vegetables, but what happens once winter descends and your market closes for the season?

Last week The Globe and Mail wrote about the urban revival of an old-fashioned means of food preservation: the root cellar.

Usually built into underground spaces, root cellars provide the humidity and above-freezing temperatures needed to keep fruits and vegetables fresh throughout the winter. They can be simple, like a cool corner of a basement, or complex, like an architect-designed cellar with shelves built to house specific foods that do best at a certain temperature or humidity.

But there's no need to get expensive or fancy. And you can even share your cellar:

In Newfoundland, root cellars built from soil, stones and wood have been part of the culture for centuries because they were the only way to keep enough vegetables, salted meat and cod to get people through long, wet winters. In some villages there were even communal root cellars.

Living in Southern California, with its unpredictable temperatures and general lack of basements, I probably won't be building a root cellar anytime soon, but I still like the idea of tucking a few winter squashes into a cool cupboard for meals several weeks down the road. For those of you in colder climates, have you ever thought about having a root cellar?

• Read the full article: The Food Storage Secret Our Grandparents Knew

(Image: Flickr member elisfanclub licensed under Creative Commons)

Comments (11)

I would love to learn more; like how to prevent mold & such.
I have a hard enough time keeping potatoes fresh in the bottom of my pantry. And the weather in the Mid-Atlantic is quite unpredictable!

I'd love to, but it's hard to have a root cellar when you live on the fourth floor.

I'm dying to try something like this out: Gardener's Supply Company: Root Storage Bin. I think it'd be pretty easy to rig something similar up. Has anyone tried this kind of bin with success?

The NY Times also had an article on root cellaring a few years ago. (The Kitchn covered that article back then too.)
Food Storage as Grandma Knew It
The Return of the Root Cellar

I live in Chicago and don't have any dirt of my own for a root cellar, but I have a makeshift one from a wooden box, a plastic tub, and lots of hay. I keep it on the balcony and it keeps root vegs nice and crispy cold November-February. They might last longer than February but by then everything has been eaten!

the pittsburgh post-gazette had an article earlier this fall: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10266/1089448-34.stm

the basement of our new house has two back rooms with shelves lining the walls, and we're pretty sure the couple who built the house used it for storing root vegetables, apples, etc., and canned their own produce. we hope to follow suit.

several of the older houses in the northeast have root cellars. The basements are unfinished (so just dirt) and stay just above freezing since they are dug to depths below the permafrost layer (the layer of dirt that freezes in the winter, the top 3-4-ish feet). I had family friends that would store squash, apples, and potatoes in their root cellars in some kind of container (rubermaid type bins) in case mice were running around.

pedalpowered, that's a great idea! I would have loved to take advantage of some of the extra veggies my CSA kept trying to get me to take this year, but I had no place to put them (my freezer was already overflowing). I may just try this--thanks!

Every house in the 1960's suburban neighbourhood I grew up in had these. They were usually tucked under the concrete front steps/landing so they had 3 uninsulated exterior foundation walls, a small vent to the outside, and an insulated door to the basement. A great place to store root veggies and apples, as well as pantry contents that can handle the cold.

As a teenager, my dad thought it was a good place to store beer. Since it was out of his sight, and he didn't keep a close count of the bottles, I thought it was a fantastic idea.

I can only imagine what other things could be buried in a root cellar amongst the vegies. Somehow the idea of dirt and rodent attracting material doesn't appeal to me, but I like the self-sufficiency and living lightly on the planet component of the concept.

For several years I've thought it would be cool if urban apartment complexes had root cellars for each apartment under the parking garage (like storage cages in the basement). Combined with a rooftop garden plot, how fantastic would that be? Super-fantastic. :)

My grandfather lived in the old family farm house until he died. The house was built in the 1850's and the only renovations had been to add plumbing and electricity. Even the outhouse is still standing in the back of the yard. He stored all of his produce, dairy, and beer in the root cellar until he got too old to go up and down the stairs every day and my Dad and uncles bought him a fridge. I always loved going downstairs in the morning to shop for milk, eggs & potatoes for breakfast. Now I wonder how he kept the bugs and rodents out, or if he managed to do so at all.