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Do you know where the "don't put hot food in the fridge" idea came from? My thought has always been that if my fridge warms up the compressor will fire up and cool it down again.

The fda seems to err very heavily on the "cool immediately" side of things: https://www.fda.gov/food/people-risk-foodborne-illness/tips-...

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It's an idea you can easily test and entirely depends on the thermal mass of the item. A well ventilated room can move heat away from food much faster than a fridge can simply because the fridge is heavily insulated and is comparatively poor at circulating air.

A quick experiment you can do is take a big pot of boiling water and put it in your fridge. Wait 5 minutes. The internal temp of fridge will now be hotter than room temp. At this point it's as if every item in your fridge is now sitting out in the sun. Every item is in the danger zone until the fridge cools that entire pot, which can take a few hours.

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