I agree, Jkath.
My dad's mother was an Amish lady, married to hard-workin', hard-drinkin' Scots-Irish farmer in Iowa. She grew the vegetables, he grew corn and potatoes.
Of coursed refrigeration was no problem in the winter...they slaughtered in the fall and hung the beef in the upstairs spare room (to keep the animals out of it)...and it stayed frozen. She canned her pork the same way she did her produce...over a wood fire outdoors, in big copper kettles with straw in the bottom to keep the jars from breaking.
The canned goods, sauerkraut, pickles, potatoes, apples, etc. were stored in "the cave"...a combination storm cellar and storage facility.
In the summer, though, they chilled their milk, butter, cottage cheese and the like in the deep well. They ate a lot of chicken then, and dad said grandma could wring a chickens neck with the flick of her wrist.
It was his job to pluck the chickens and singe off the pin-feathers, and for the rest of his life he hated "grass-hopper chickens". If he came through my kitchen door and I was boiling a chicken, he'd just turn around and leave.
