Iceboxes, root cellars or spring houses built near cool running water.
Meat was either smoked or salted or canned.
Ice houses were all over and ice was cut in winter with ice saws-i have one.
Then the ice was stored under straw or sawdust in the ice houses.
In the cities, there were ice deliveries available.
Usually, things were delivered, like milk, and consumed before it went bad. Dinners had very little left overs and what there was, was fed to the dogs or cats, pigs, chickens, etc.
I barely remember the old ice box we had. Very little was in there.
Nothing was frozen. No such thing as a freezer.
Cellars stored a lot of things like potatoes and canned stuff. Hams, etc were stored in the smoke house.
We have a root cellar and an inground cement springhouse with a trough along the wall full of cold flowing groundwater where we kept the full milk cans prior to trucking. When we stopped using milk cans it kept our beer cold.
We used to joke that you sobered up every time you reached down in the cold water to grab another beer.