Tag Archives: refrigeration

The Origins of Automated Ice

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By Danielle Aloia. Special Projects Librarian

This August, for most of us, ice is a second thought:  easily obtained for cooling drinks and chilling food, and usually only a few steps away.   An 1844 title in our collections offers an intriguing snapshot of a time when this was not always the case.

In 1844, a Londoner with a shop on Regent Street and an inventive mind published The Ice Book: Being a Compendious and Concise History of Everything Connected with Ice.  His name was Thomas Masters.   In this publication, Masters enumerates the practical uses–both culinary and medical– of his own patented ice machine.  In his introduction, Masters describes his obsession with the process of freezing:

The transformations narrated in the “Arabian Nights,” those gorgeous repositories of Eastern legendary lore, are not more marvelous or more speedy than the change of a liquid body to a block of solid ice.1

During the course of The Ice Book, Masters introduces his invention and its applications and takes readers on a whirlwind tour of ice through space and time.  Along the way, he also supplies some delectable frozen recipes–sign us up for the maraschino ice cream, the nectar ice and the punch a la Victoria, stat.

Masters reports that the Greeks and Romans were known to use snow from the surrounding mountains to cool their wine.2 Nero’s cooks flavored snow with “honey, juices, and pulp of fruits,” creating a precursor to the flavored ice of today, and eventually ice cream.3

nationaldairycouncil_icecreamyears_1946_watermark

Depiction of a runner delivering snow from the mountains to Nero. Published in the National Dairy Council’s Ice Cream Through the Years, 1946.

Masters also describes Indian methods of making artificial ice, reporting that during the winter months, ice was created by filling rows of small earthen pans with boiled water, which was then cooled and left overnight.  The thin ice was gathered up, thrown in a pit that was lined with straw and layered with blankets, and pressed into a solid mass.  The pit was closed up with straw, blankets and a thatched roof.

Masters devotes a significant portion of his narrative to the promotion of his portable “patent freezing machine.”  In his introduction he writes:

The preparation of one of the most delectable refections known to this advanced era of modern culinary civilization, has been hitherto left to the experienced confectioner, on whose skill, not always within reach, depended the supply.  By attending to the instructions contained in the following pages, ices may now be procured from the machine within five minutes.4

A review of the book in The Patent Journal and Inventors’ Magazine offers this glowing endorsement of The Ice Book:

The specification of Mr. Masters’ patent appeared in #53 of our journal…it will be seen that he invented a number of very ingenious apparatus, by means of which, the luxury of cold liquors, &c. may be the most readily supplied; his Ice safes and well are excellent, and his ready mode of freezing, astonishing.  It is really a disgrace to buttermen and other shopkeepers to vend their edibles in the nasty state they frequently do, and the public should demand the use by tradesmen of these safes…5

The benefits of Masters’ machine were not limited to food and drink preparation.  Ice was used in medicine to relieve headaches, fever, hemorrhaging, and, believe it or not, symptoms of rabies.6 Masters includes testimonials from MDs.  One Dr. John Ryan writes that Masters’ machine will “enable [doctors] at all seasons, whether in the crowded fever wards of the hospital, or in private practice, to obtain for the patient a necessary adjunct to medical treatment.”7

An elevation of a double-motion machine with pails (B), a2 (machinery), and P (flapdoor).  Some were made with a drawer underneath, which serves as a wine-cooler.  Plate 1 published in Thomas Masters' The Ice Book, published in 1844.

An elevation of a double-motion machine with pails (B), a2 (machinery), and P (flapdoor).  Some were made with a drawer underneath, which serves as a wine-cooler.  Plate 1 published in Thomas Masters’ The Ice Book, published in 1844.

A single-motion machine with a freezer that is rotated by turning the crank handle at the top.  Plate 3, published in Thomas Masters' The Ice Book, 1844.

A single-motion machine with a freezer that is rotated by turning the crank handle at the top.  Plate 3, published in Thomas Masters’ The Ice Book, 1844.

The machine had various interchangeable parts and could be setup for private use to make blocks of ice, flavored ice and ice cream, and to cool wine and drinks. In plate 6 below, Figures 1-3 depict the special churns needed to get the fineness and smoothness necessary to keep the flavored ice or ice cream from separating; “a proper beating-up, a process which never can be accomplished by the hand.”8 Figures 4-5, depict separate ice preserving containers for game, fish, butter, etc. Figures 6-8, depict the cold storage for beverages, such as wine and beer.

Plate 6 published in Thomas Masters' The Ice Book, 1844.

Plate 6 published in Thomas Masters’ The Ice Book, 1844.

Below, we’ve included a few tantalizing recipes from the book.  Masters supplies instructions for making plain and flavored ice creams:

Recipes for plain, pistachio, biscuit, maraschino, "nouveau" and cinnamon ice creams, from Thomas Masters' The Ice Book, 1844.

Recipes for plain, pistachio, biscuit, maraschino, “nouveau” and cinnamon ice creams, from Thomas Masters’ The Ice Book, 1844.

Recipes for pine-apple, ginger, and apricot ice cream, from Thomas Masters' The Ice Book, 1844.

Recipes for pine-apple, ginger, and apricot ice cream, from Thomas Masters’ The Ice Book, 1844.

Other recipes instruct on making flavored ices.

Wine ices, from Thomas Masters' The Ice Book, 1844.

Wine ices, from Thomas Masters’ The Ice Book, 1844.

Raspberry water ice et al., published in Thomas Masters' The Ice Book, 1844.

Raspberry water ice et al., published in Thomas Masters’ The Ice Book, 1844.

Apple water ice et al., published in Thomas Masters' The Ice Book, 1844.

Apple water ice et al., published in Thomas Masters’ The Ice Book, 1844.

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How to clarify sugar, from Thomas Masters’ The Ice Book 1844.

We found this errata slip laid in amusing:

Errata slip, Thomas Masters' The Ice Book, 1844.

Errata slip, Thomas Masters’ The Ice Book, 1844.

Another peculiar aspect of this work is the Appendix. Masters delights in supplying real-life anecdotes about ice.  Among the highlights are an ice storm in 1672 that destroyed numerous trees; an ice market in 19th-century St. Petersburg containing the bodies of thousands of frozen animals, captured inside ice; and in that same city, the Ice Palace of St. Petersburg built near the banks of the River Neva in 1739, which began to give way under its own weight before the last ice blocks were placed.9  We’ll be returning to this book again for these fascinating stories, and for the recipes within…particularly on hot summer days.

References

1.   Masters, Thomas. The Ice Book. London: Simpkin, Marshall, & Co., 1844.

2.  Masters, 6.

3.  National Dairy Council. Ice Cream through the Years.  Chicago: National Dairy Council, 1946.

4.  Masters, x.

5.  “Thomas Masters’ Ice Book:  The Ice Book: Being a Compendious and Concise History of Everything Connected with Ice.”  Patent Journal and Inventors’ Magazine, June 5, 1847, accessed online.

6.  Masters, pp. 180-187.

7.  Masters, pp. 185-187.

8.  Masters, pp. 194-196.

9. Masters, pp. 134-146.

 

Program Announcement: Interlibrary Snacking

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As announced last month, our programming theme for 2015 is Eating Through Time.

We are thrilled to introduce a new pilot program, the Reciprocal Library Snack Cooperative, or Interlibrary Snacking, to go along with this theme. Our library boasts more than 10,000 volumes relating to food and cookery. For this new program, library staff will prepare recipes from the collection and send them to requesting libraries, who will in turn offer prepared recipes from their collections. All service providers will undergo thorough food safety training. In addition to white cotton gloves, cookbook users will receive hairnets.

Library snacks will focus on locally sourced, sustainable items. We are building a bespoke refrigeration unit based on the 1890 volume Mechanical Refrigeration and are taking into consideration cold storage advice from Into the Freezer—And Out (1946).

We are building a refrigeration unit based on his illustration from Mechanical Refrigeration, scheduled for completion in September 2016.

We are building a refrigeration unit, scheduled for completion in September 2016, based on this illustration from Mechanical Refrigeration.

The plan for our cold storage organization closely adheres to that shown in Into the Freezer—And Out.

The plan for our cold storage organization closely adheres to that shown in Into the Freezer—And Out.

Men Like Meat, an undated pamphlet from the American Can Company. Disclaimer on back cover: "We manufacture cans. We do no canning."

Men Like Meat, an undated pamphlet from the American Can Company. Disclaimer on back cover: “We manufacture cans – we do no canning.”

Before we tackle perishables, however, our focus will be on more shelf-stable foodstuff. Our collection includes a selection of items on canning, preserves, canned meats, food drying and dehydration, and other expiration-extending technologies.

The practice of developing new technologies to enable the safe transportation of food from one place to the next is an old story. As early as the 1850s, commercially canned goods—especially sardines, tomatoes, condensed milk, and fruits and vegetables—found an eager consumer audience in the Western United States. Cowboys bought oysters from Baltimore and canned tomatoes in bulk. In the early 20th century, canning facilitated the introduction of regional fruits like the California fig and the pineapple nationwide. Coast to coast, commercial canning introduced Americans to new foods, but often at the expense of freshness and taste.1

After the 1930s, supermarket foods were increasingly packaged: boxed, frozen, canned, dried, bottled, or combined in ready-to-eat forms. Advertisers marketed these in bright colors with catchy names that increased sales and added preservatives to ensure a longer-shelf life. Convenience usually trumped taste, and boredom at the family dinner table led many families increasingly to dine out.1

Our aim will be to use technologies like canning to enhance flavor. Along with the Reciprocal Library Snack Cooperative’s mission to include local, sustainable foods, we will also embrace more traditional methods of preservation. Goodbye chemical preservatives, hello pickling! Here is an example of a recipe currently in the works.

In addition, our program will have a secondary focus on recipes featuring new cooking technologies at the time of their publication. We have already had the soft-launch of the program: Our first item sent was inspired by this recipe from 1911.

The first recipe successfully made and sent as part of the Reciprocal Library Snack Cooperative.

The first recipe successfully made and sent as part of the Reciprocal Library Snack Cooperative.2

Want to know more about food history? Attend our Eating Through Time programming.

Reference
1. Hooker RJ. Food and drink in America: A history. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill; 1981.
2. Special thanks to Juan at Sterling Affair for preparing historically accurate toast.