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#130368 07/12/04 08:12 AM
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T
Trouser Offline OP
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T
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Why do we say "defrost the sausages" and not "thaw/unfreeze the sausages"?

This, amazingly, is now driving me mad. Please, please help.

Trouser

ADDITIONAL:

Thanks for the poss answers - seems to be no absolute solution though - which i guess is always the way. It makes no sense, i tells you... Trouser [London]


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Carpal Tunnel
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Because that's what it says on the microwave button?

I think it used to be thaw back when we just left them out till they softened up. Seems like it might still be, mostly; I'll gots to listen. Where you from, Trouser?

And welcome to our private brand of lunacy.


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The reason for saying defrost goes back three hundred years, to Thaddeus, High Count of Baragarantria, who was the first person to consider the possibility of being revived after death. He and the seven Thaddeuses who followed him were all put on ice in the Baragarantrian Alps, high up between Switzerland and Italy.

Unfortunately, the climate changed and it became necessary for the peasants in Baragarantria to be put to work hauling in ice to keep the eight bodies more or less intact. This went on for some years until there was a revolution, the current Count was deposed, and the bodies on ice were left in the crypt.

A week or two later the first tourist, who quite by coincidence was the guy who invented the microwave, to return to Baragarantria asked about the terrible odor around the base of the castle. "Don't worry about it," he was told, "It's the thawed Thad Counts." So instead of thaw he put defrost on that button on the front of the microwave.

Bet you didn't know you can't thaw large soup containers in the microwave, since you can't see defrost for the tureens.



TEd
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All one needs is TEd and the words "three hundred years".


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All one needs is TEd and the words "three hundred years".

Second prize: six hundred years.


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old hand
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old hand
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Us UKians say thaw. As in puddy-tat.


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Pooh-Bah
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Well, in our house if it's left in the fridge or under cover to unthaw, we say "Defrost". If it's in the microwave, we say "nuke". Go figure.


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I never thought about it before but I say defrost for meat and thaw for other things even in the microwave. Except for icecream and ice cubes which melt and planes which de-ice (but never in the microwave).


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Thinking about it I'd have to say we thaw steak, hamburger, and chicken. Sausages we just move straight from the freezer to cooking. They're small enough they don't take any special procedure. That's assuming they even make it to the freezer in the first place.


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Carpal Tunnel
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we used to have to defrost the freezer, but we always thaw things out, unless we're doing it in the microwave, then it's defrost...



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