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How people kept stuff cold before refrigerators - YouTube
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the history of refrigeration does not
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begin with the refrigerator these things
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are only about a hundred years old
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people have had ways of keeping food and
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drink cold for way longer than that this
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is the story of some brilliant ancient
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engineering and it's a story with
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particular relevance to me and my family
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grandpa Raghu Co was an Iceman and
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Iceman is an ancient occupation people
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would take off ice off the top of
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mountains and bring them down to the
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valleys and use them to put stuff in
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their drinks this is doctor Jonathan
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Reese at Colorado State University
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Pueblo probably the foremost historian
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on the subject of refrigeration China
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India ancient Rome all have ice to that
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extent I mean think about it the Alps
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and the Himalayas are covered in snow
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and ice all year long it's way colder at
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high altitudes it's totally possible to
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go up there in the dead of summer pack
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up a whole bunch of frozen water and
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bring it back down again this absolutely
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would not have been a viable option for
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your typical family just trying to avoid
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food spoilage they had to make do with
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the old-fashioned way of preserving food
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with salt and smoke no mountain top ice
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would have been a hyper expensive luxury
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good for the richest of the rich and it
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probably would have been used more for
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cold beverages and frozen desserts less
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for preserving food in the very stupid
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2005 movie Kingdom of Heaven there is a
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very cool scene where the legendary
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counter Crusader Sala Dean produces a
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box of ice in the middle of the desert
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he's offering the Crusader king of
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Jerusalem a cold drink of water right
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after the Muslims defeated the
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Christians at the Battle of hot teen in
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the year 1187 present-day Israel so many
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historical inaccuracies in this film but
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this is probably a pretty accurate
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portrayal of the social context that
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summer ice would have had in pre-modern
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life a substance precious as gold and
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far more ephemeral though if the real
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Saladin actually had ornate little boxes
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of ice he might not have gotten them
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from mountaintops the desert actually
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gets really cold at night cold enough
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that in winter at least you can pour a
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shallow pool of water into a basin and
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it'll freeze overnight first thing in
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the morning you pick up all the little
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pieces and then you store them someplace
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cool and
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a cave or a pit you dig or an Icehouse
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this is a yak shell an ancient Persian
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ice house cold air is more dense so it
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sinks to the bottom of a pit warm air
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floats to the top and this conical shape
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here channels that warm air up and away
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from the ice add in a super clever
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system of wind catchers and as early as
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400 BCE Persians would have been able to
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make ice in here in the winter and then
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store it in here all year long
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to this day in Iran Yawk shawl is what
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they call modern refrigerators in
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temperate climates like Europe this
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would have been way easier when a pond
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on your land freezes over in the winter
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you simply cut out big blocks of ice and
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store them in a nice dark shed this one
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is in Scotland ice houses were
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introduced to Britain in the 17th
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century now you might be wondering wait
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wouldn't it still melt in there
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eventually well let's do an experiment
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here's 6 little blocks of ice I'll lay
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them out on my back driveway three of
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them side-by-side and three of them
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stacked on top of each other it's July
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in Macon Georgia so these things are
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gonna melt but look at how much faster
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the ones on the right are melting
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they're gone whereas the stacked ice is
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still standing you stack up the blocks
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and the blocks keep each other cold sure
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these are melting fast but the
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insulating effect is compounded the more
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ice you stack a miniscule amount of ice
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ends up exposed to the air exchanging
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heat with the surrounding environment
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this is the same reason why subarctic
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glaciers don't entirely melt away in the
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summertime this is not a glacier this is
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a filthy snow pile in Boston where the
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city dumped what they plowed during the
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particularly brutal winter of 2015
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thanks to Kevin McGurn for letting me
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use the time lapse that he shot that
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pile lasted until July out in the open
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no insulation no cover from the Sun you
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get your ice pile out of the Sun and it
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can last all year long especially if you
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pack it in something insulating like
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straw or this sawdust sawdust is so
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effective at insulating ice that the
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Brits came up with a plan in World War
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two to build an aircraft carrier out of
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a mixture of ice and sawdust they called
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pykrete the plan ended up not happening
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but they built a scale model of the
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sucker and at war
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it floated in the ocean and it didn't
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melt nonetheless summer ice remained an
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almost novelty luxury good until the
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rise of the modern ice trade which
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started in the early 19th century right
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here in the United States and this is
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where Jonathan Reese's research comes in
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here's his book before the refrigerator
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I start my discussion from 1806 which is
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when a guy named Frederic Tudor started
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cutting ice off ponds in New England
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packing them on ships and literally
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sending that stuff all over in the world
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then that call about the beginning of
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the the ice industry where it becomes a
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business the New England region of the
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US was perfect for this it's full of
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deep clear cool ponds and lakes that
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freeze up thick every winter you get a
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team of guys out there with saws to cut
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it into blocks or a team of horses it
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looks like they're dragging a plow but
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they're actually dragging saws then you
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carry the blocks to a giant ice house
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this is a conveyor belt and built for
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that purpose and from the Ice House by
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the lake you're just a short carriage or
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train ride to Boston and tons of other
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ports Tudor first sold his ice in the
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Caribbean and the American South but the
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ice trade rapidly globalized the
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Victorian era British Empire could not
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buy enough New England ice even if
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you're sending it to India which they
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did do about half of it would still be
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around by the time the ship got to India
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because the outside of the iceberg
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protected the inside of the ice this new
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year-round supply of relatively
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affordable ice was simply revolutionary
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people in hot climates used to die of
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food poisoning all the time and now they
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had a cool place where they could keep
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their fresh food like milk and meat nice
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surf shucks now once people got a block
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of natural New England ice what exactly
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did they do with it well dr. Rees says
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you would put it in your refrigerator
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wait your refrigerator on an ice box
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isn't really called an ice box until
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there's an electric household
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refrigerator and then it becomes a
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contrast in ice box in the nineteenth
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century is generally known as a
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refrigerator even though it's an ice box
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and that's some sort of wood contraption
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usually two compartments one is where
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the ice goes one is where the food goes
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and air circulates between the two my
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favorite ice box fact is that you have
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to eat the door shut as long as possible
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because if you let air into it and it's
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gonna melt faster now your wants giant
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ice block would melt eventually and so
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at some point you would need to get a
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new one delivered and this is where
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grandpa comes in the grandfather on my
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Italian side Anthony Ragusa was born in
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New York City in 1912 and by then there
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was a major domestic ice market in the
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u.s. most families had an ice box and
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when he was about 14 years old grandpa
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got work delivering fresh ice and
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door-to-door the iron tool that he used
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to push around the blocks is hanging
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right now in my mom and dad's house in
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Pennsylvania and he had an uncle his
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name was Willie and you look a lot like
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him actually Willie had bought some land
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of state New York near Newburgh New York
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and he built a dam across a stream and
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created a lake that's the lake upstate
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right behind my grandparents there it
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would freeze in the winter Uncle Willie
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and his guys would cut the ice and store
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it in a nice house and downriver from
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the dam typically enterprising
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italian-american immigrant that he was
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Uncle Willie also had a sawmill and he'd
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used the sawdust to pack up the ice
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blocks without it the blocks would
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actually freeze together and my father
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would sell that ice in New York City he
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would bring it down in a horse and wagon
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and then he carry the ice sometimes
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three four or five stories up the stairs
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into tenement walk up and put it in
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people's ice boxes one purpose of that
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iron tool might have been to scrape the
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dirty sawdusty surface off the block of
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ice before grandpa hauled it into your
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nice clean kitchen and even then things
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got dirty Oh the cleaning got the
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cleaning is terrible right and imagine
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if you up the wood structure and you're
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putting ice into it mold is a terrible
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problem scum from the ice if you're
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using naturalised gets caught in the
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drain pipe because you have to serve
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drain the water out the fact that people
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put up with that is an indication of
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just how revolutionary the ice trade was
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for domestic life it was even more
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revolutionary for the food industry the
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first industry to get transformed was
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the beer industry lager beers is a
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German import immigrants knew how to do
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it you could only do it during the
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winter until there's an ice industry
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lager style beers are made with a
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different kind of yeast than ale style
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beers and these East need cold so in the
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late 19th century ice cut from lakes in
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the Upper Midwest allowed the lager
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industry in Milwaukee to brew year-round
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Coors and Miller and past and Schlitz
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became America's favorite beers and you
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could keep them cold in your icebox
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the next industry to be revolutionized
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was meat until the late 19th century if
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you were a rancher in the American West
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the way that you got beef to market was
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to put a cow on a train to New York City
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once the ice trade happened Chicago
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became America's butcher south side of
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Chicago the whole packing town area
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becomes the most important need exporter
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in the entire country because there's
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this path that's taken where the cows
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are driven up to the railroad by the
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Cowboys the railroads all go through
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Chicago the cows are slaughtered in
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Chicago then you can break him down and
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ship them to anywhere in the East Coast
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went now but you can ice the railway
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cars then after ice transformed meats it
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transformed produce California had the
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climate to grow beautiful fruits and
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vegetables year-round but it was across
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the continent from where most American
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consumers were concentrated no problem
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when you can load your fruit in an ice
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car
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pretty soon industry started to exceed
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America's capacity to produce natural
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ice no pond was safe
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Thoreau's Walden Pond in Massachusetts
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was harvested for ice so around the turn
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of the 20th century begins the
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transition from natural ice to plant ice
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not ice from plants but plant as in
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factory factory made ice the basic
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vapour compression technology of modern
[726]
Electrical refrigerators had already
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been around for decades and by the late
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19th century industrialists had figured
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out how to do it on a commercial scale
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these machines were far too big to fit
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in home kitchens but they could fit in a
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factory which could manufacture ice
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year-round it's the first thing that
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mechanical refrigeration is really used
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for and becomes very popular because if
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you use natural ice there's dirt and
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dead leaves and all sorts of scum on
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your ice even no matter how often you
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clean it and the artificial ice is
[758]
relatively clear but the old ice
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business really started to chill around
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1930 with the introduction of the first
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home refrigerators this is again a story
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with particular family resonance for me
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because over here on my mother's side my
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white father who was Frank Fox working
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at General Electric at the time
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Westinghouse I'm sorry Westinghouse at
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the time Frank C Fox was part of a team
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inventing and marketing the electric
[788]
refrigerator so her father put my father
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out of business yep we came out on top
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that was okay because by then Uncle Sam
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needed grandpa ragu SIA in the Army Air
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Corps where he was wait for it a cook
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and he was stationed wait for it in
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Iceland apparently he had a great time
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ice fishing cold comfort I realized
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