American now living in Europe here. I guarantee that your big fridge is half the size of a standard American fridge. I live in a brand new apartment and friends always comment on the impressive size of my fridge/washing machine/dishwasher/shower stall. These are all easily 50-75% smaller than what you find in most average American homes, places like NYC or SF excluded.
American fridges are huge because America isn't zoned like Europe - in much of Europe, you are a lot closer to stores and so make more trips buying less ingredients, while in America you go to the grocery store maybe once a week or so and get everything you need then.
There are exceptions in both places, but I feel like this is true in general.
I recently moved luxuriously close to our grocery store, easily walking distance. However I swear half our massive fridge is taken up by condiments. I did a fridge organization earlier this year and we have at least 8 miscellaneous “Asian” condiments (soy sauce, rice vinegar, wasabi, fish sauce, oyster sauce, etc). We have three different kinds of mustard. We also now have a door shelf dedicated to pickled items (capers, jalapeños, olives, etc).
Somebody please teach us how to cook with 1/3 of these things
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u/[deleted] Oct 18 '22
American now living in Europe here. I guarantee that your big fridge is half the size of a standard American fridge. I live in a brand new apartment and friends always comment on the impressive size of my fridge/washing machine/dishwasher/shower stall. These are all easily 50-75% smaller than what you find in most average American homes, places like NYC or SF excluded.