Life Before Refrigeration

In this day and age, where refrigeration is sleek in design, increasingly effective and highly efficient it is unthinkable of living our daily lives without these pieces of equipment. When we experience a breakdown of these items human nature dictates that we automatically enter a break down of our own. Where will the milk be kept cold? Where will we store our dairy products? How can we keep our leftover foods fresh? What about the food in the freezer which is deteriorating into a soggy mass? Lack of refrigeration in the domestic setting can cause minor inconvenience however in a commercial environment this small irritation can quickly turn to major chaos. The sheer amount of stock which a commercial food business needs and that requires correct storage temperatures means that should a failure occur the business will not have the ingredients to serve the customers and will also lose large amounts of money as a result of the inventory that needs to be disposed of. As refrigeration has become a big part of our existence, even though it is taken for granted and the importance of this equipment is rarely thought of, it is hard to imagine life before this useful bit of kit. But how did people cope before refrigeration became widely available?

Refrigeration took a gradual route before actually evolving into anything similar to what we all recognise today. Obviously the technology which allows us constant cooling measures was not available in times of old and so other techniques were used to preserve food and keep it fresh. In 1637, Sir William Berkley, the governor of Virginia, was granted the patent to construct buildings located in the coolest parts of the area; these were known as ice houses and were used to store ice throughout the year. These structures could appear as more standard buildings whilst others were dug into the ground; these being called ice pits. Wherever they were situated, these ice houses were always man made and typically nearby a natural water source which would freeze during the winter months. When the water was frozen, locals would cut the ice, fill the ice house or pit and compact it to encourage the ice to form one solid mass. When there was no fresh water source locally the ice would need to be imported therefore adding more cost to the procedure. Some form of insulation was obviously needed to keep the ice as cool as possible and evidence has shown that this insulation typically came in the form of sawdust or straw. The ice would usually remain until the following winter when the process would be repeated. The ice houses and pits were initially used to store only ice however soon became useful to also store house perishable foods. As ice houses, in the beginning were few and far between many people who had the appropriate finances would pay the owner of the ice house for a sufficient area where they could store their perishable goods, including, milk, butter and preserves. Later, even cider and brandy would be stored to increase the validity of the product.

Ice was becoming hot property and as the trade grew so did the existence of practical and effective methods of storage. To begin with it was only the upper classes who could afford to build their own personal ice houses, the poorer people having to make do with more traditional methods of smoking, drying and salting etc. The lower classes soon found that they also wanted to join in with the joy of consuming fresh food and it was this demand in the 1920’s that led to convenience supplies being traded from local ice houses and the birth of convenience stores came about.

These large ice houses soon became inefficient as people wanted a system of keeping their perishable foods fresh but without needing to leave their homes to gather ingredients. Convenience and ease for those who had the luxury of an ice house soon led to the introduction of ice boxes. These items really took off popularity wise in the early nineteenth century when the ice trade developed further. Ice boxes typically consisted of a wooden box with added insulation. This insulation integrated some of the more traditional methods such as sawdust along with cork and in certain cases even seaweed. There was also the new introduction of a lining made from tin, zinc or other non-corroding metals. It was this invention which allowed many people to indulge in the pleasure of having their ice house in the comfort of their own kitchen. Ice would no longer need to be cut from nearby water sources during the winter months and instead was delivered to areas once or twice a week. The customer would simply need to visit their local ice house or ice distribution outlet. As the wooden boxes were obviously so much smaller than the original ice houses, they could not accommodate the same quantities of ice meaning that the ice would melt at a faster pace. The regular ice deliveries solved this problem and allowed people to refill their ice boxes on a bi weekly basis. The ice box design included a drip pan at the bottom of the box which was used to collect the water from the melting ice. This drip pan needed to be emptied daily to avoid any spillages. The popularity of this new invention soon meant that ice houses began to diminish in numbers. These ice boxes were the first structure which roughly performed as a refrigerator and also loosely resembled the products which have become an essential part of every home and business. The convenience of being able to store perishable goods in a box inside home is basically what we can view as refrigeration of today.

As much as the idea of ice houses and subsequently ice boxes was a turning point for the storage of foods, in the 1920’s the creation of early mechanised refrigerators which disbanded the need for manual ice input and the daily emptying of water, meant that the popularity of these pieces of equipment quickly lost favour.

It is difficult to imagine our lives without the refrigeration which we have grown accustomed to however there was a time when ice was the only source for chilling perishable items. Try to imagine filling your ice house or ice box with ice frequently, emptying drip pans every day when required and having to leave the house, in the case of ice houses, just to get some milk before having to return it back again! The thought is, at best, inconvenient and highlights exactly how much we rely on good quality refrigeration in this day and age. The journey which refrigeration has travelled is an amazing one however has ultimately culminated in the technology that is an ever present in the modern world.