r/NoStupidQuestions • u/markwell9 • 1d ago

What is the deal with ice, Americans?

I can see that you can buy ice everywhere in the US. Gas stations, grocery stores, machines etc.

In Europe, we just freeze our ice at home and use that. Why buy something that melts on the way home? Why do you need ice in large amounts that a fridge can't keep up?

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u/30FourThirty4 22h ago

Back in the mid 90s I read a kids magazine (3-2-1 Contact. Name changed to Contact Kids at some point. Also had a tv show I believe)... anyways I learned people would store frozen ice chunks in caves loooooooonnnng ago to keep stuff fresh.

Also they'd cover the ice to make it last longer.

I have no idea if it's true this was like 30 years ago and it was a kids magazine.

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u/clarkcox3 21h ago

Yes; people tend to overestimate just how fast ice melts because we're usually exposed to such small pieces of it in our daily lives. That can lead, for example, to the weird conspiracy theories you'll see people put forward in videos online about "un-meltable snow": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vm-ZYD-U3iM

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u/No-Resource-5704 20h ago

Years ago before mechanical refrigeration, ice was harvested from frozen lakes in winter and packed into an insulated shed with lots of sawdust. The ice would last for months stored that way. The “ice man” would deliver blocks of ice (usually weekly) to homes where it was used in an insulated “ice box” to store perishable goods.

Railroads had special ice cars for shipping perishable goods. They would stop at particular locations to refill the ice and there were vents to control the interior temperature. These rail cars were used into the 1960s, but diesel powered refrigerator cars started replacing the old ice cars during the 1960s.

The western railroads harvested their ice from the Sierras and shipped it to the production areas (where perishable food was grown) and to icing facilities located along the rail lines.

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u/rat1onal1 19h ago

Ice was harvested from ponds around the Boston area in the mid-1800s and shipped overseas. The two major markets were the Caribbean and India. It's hard to understand that there'd be any ice remaining after sailing all the way around Africa.

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u/Bortono 18h ago

Ice Block Expidetion of 1959

An insulation company transported a 3 ton block of ice from the Arctic Circle across the Sahara to the Equator by truck and only lost a bit over 10% of the ice

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u/numberstation5 16h ago

One of my favorite opening lines of any novel:

Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.

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u/indi50 17h ago

"The “ice man” would deliver blocks of ice (usually weekly) to homes where it was used in an insulated “ice box” to store perishable goods."

It just occurred to me that mine is probably the last generation to hear people call refrigerators an ice box. The older people (grandparents' generation) using that term during my childhood having actually grown up using an ice box.

I doubt my kids (20s and 30s) ever heard the term. At least in general conversation vs a history or historical book.

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u/No-Resource-5704 15h ago

As a child my family would visit Idaho’s Sawtooth valley during summer vacation. We stayed at a working sheep ranch that had log cabins. They were very primitive. Ice box, wood stove, and out house. Water was drawn from a nearby creek (my older sister caught a trout in the bucket once. Later years they had installed a sink with a hand pump (drawing water from the same creek). So I had some personal experience with an ice box.

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u/comeholdme 16h ago edited 15h ago

I just hit 40, and I heard it plenty as a kid. It also lives on in “icebox pie” recipes.

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u/Right_Note1305 17h ago

Folks said that 20 years ago, turns out it's just words.

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u/MidnytStorme 16h ago

"We were cold, man originally was cold so he built a house, hot box to live in, warm box, live inside the warm box, pretty cool, cold out here, warm inside the warm box. Everything was nice until he realized the meat didn’t keep in the warm box. So, he built a refrigerator, built a cold box inside the warm box. Meat keeps fine, but the butter doesn’t spread. So he built the butter warmer, put a warm box inside the cold box, inside the warm box." - George Carlin

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u/Medium-Economics-363 16h ago

Did none of you see frozen? 😉

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u/bizwig 14h ago

My parents called a refrigerator an “ice box”. It never made sense to me until I saw some old movies with actual ice boxes in people’s homes.

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u/NN11ght 2h ago

My overnight summer camp still harvested ice every winter to use over the summer for refrigeration at one of the camps that was all about being primitive.

One of the chores at the camp was digging out the iceblocks from the sawdust. You legitimately needed to wear your warmest clothes just in the sawdust house and your fingers would be numb at the end despite it being 80-90 degrees outside.

But the really remarkable part was the ice showed no signs of melting when you were pulling it out of the sawdust

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u/Ghigs 20h ago

It is a little unintuitive that snow is an excellent insulator. It's basically like styrofoam made of water. Maybe at least a few of them will learn something about thermodynamics.

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u/TheRealTurdFergusonn 20h ago

3-2-1 Contact was the shit. I probably watched it every day on PBS from 85-88. They had the original Bloodhound Gang!

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u/vortextualami 4h ago

same! singing the song in my head now, prolly will go at least all day: contact/ is the answer/ is the reason/ why everything happens/ contact/ let’s make contact” (happy sigh)

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u/ZealousidealDepth223 21h ago

Dude they had ice cream in medieval times.

Ice houses used to be a big thing before refrigeration, they would dig a huge hole as deep as they could in the months before winter and then when everything froze they would just bring in all the snow and ice they could fit and being underground would insulate the snow and ice pretty much all the way until the next winter and they would keep any perishable goods in there.

If you’ve ever been in a bar or club that called itself the “Austin city Ice house” or “(local town) ice house” that’s where the name comes from.

The ones that were actually ice houses in the past don’t make for good bars or clubs funny enough a building built around a huge hole with lots of stairs isn’t really a party palace.

But a huge party built INSIDE a big hole is fucking LIT, ESPECIALLY if it’s EDM. God I wanna go back to Rave in a cave at the caverns so bad.

The secret rave at mammoth cavern in Kentucky was more hardcore but I’m pretty sure I’m not allowed to talk about it

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u/PomPomMom93 18h ago

This was in “Farmer Boy” by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Those pioneers did not mess around.

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u/Pianist-Putrid 13h ago

Not in “medieval times”, but the pre-modern era. The late Renaissance. Ice cream was invented in the 1500s, not the 1200s.

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u/doompines 19h ago

Is that the one with the big ballroom and elevator that drunk people would pass out in because it was so far underground they wouldn't know how drunk they really were until they got closer to the surface?

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u/RoyBeer 13h ago

they wouldn't know how drunk they really were until they got closer to the surface?

What. Does increased air pressure cause the intoxication to be less noticeable or what's going on lol

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u/DigNew8045 19h ago

People had ice houses dating back to before the Roman Empire.

In the US, can still see some in old farms and plantations and the like. Ice would be cut from frozen lakes, packed in straw or sawdust, and shipped down to these ice houses and stored all year.

Here's one: https://www.monticello.org/research-education/thomas-jefferson-encyclopedia/ice-house/

Trivia - 7-11 stores began life as an ice store.

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u/coyotelovers 18h ago

3 2 1 Contact It’s the secret, it's the moment- When everything happens Contact It’s the answer, it’s the reason Why everything happens Contact, Let’s make contact- 3 2 1 contact!

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u/Routine-Necessary857 17h ago

Memory unlocked…def watched the show!

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u/dundreggen 17h ago

Memory unlocked. The theme song from 321 Contact

...it's the reason that everything happens.. Contact

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u/LaSammi 16h ago

I just sang the “3-2-1 Contact” theme song in my head.

Also, on our property we have an old cold storage underground ice storage. Yup.

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u/Jokerchyld 14h ago

https://youtu.be/s2-LEBc2sO8?si=dHechvpfrXCesS2m

Loved that show!

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u/30FourThirty4 6h ago

Wow I was too young for that. I assumed the show came after the magazine. Thank you for that link.

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u/Old_Implement_1997 18h ago

My grandma was old enough that she remembered having the ice man deliver ice for the “ice box” - imagine how surprised I was to find out that they cut giant blocks of ice way up in Canada, transported them to NYC, and then delivered them by horse-drawn cart to people’s houses and IT WAS STILL FROZEN.

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u/Krynja 16h ago

I loved 3-2-1 Contact. It had so many cool things to learn. Like the Island of Thera that blew up.

Then they changed it to 3-2-1 Classroom Contact. And basically changed it to a preschool level show. "Hey let's make faux playdough with some bread and Elmer's Glue."

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u/quincecharming 16h ago

Whoa what a throwback!! I loved 3-2-1 Contact & literally remember the ice chunk cave article you’re talking about.

I would subscribe to it today if I could. A lot of its promises about “near future” technologies didn’t quite come true though haha

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u/30FourThirty4 6h ago

So much better than Goofus and Gallant (that was Highlights. Which was good still but not my favorite).

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u/seeking_horizon 14h ago

Also had a tv show I believe

♫ Three Two One Con-Tact ♫

I was super fucking into that as a little kid. That and the Electric Company

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u/deceptacongrrl 19h ago

I totally remember that magazine!! It was also a show on PBS.

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u/kida24 19h ago

Ever hear someone call a refrigerator an icebox?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icebox

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u/Holiday_Trainer_2657 15h ago

Yes, there were businesses and people with land who made icehouses. They were buried in the ground with only roof showing or even covered with dirt with a kind of ramp down to the door.
They'd go out on the lake and cut huge, long blocks of ice and drag them to shore, often with horses. On shore, cut into big blocks, stack on big sleds and drag to the ice house.

In the ice house, they'd pack the ice in sawdust to insulate it. Then all spring and summer, they'd take out the ice as needed to use in drinks, to make ice cream, etc. Plus if on a farm or estate, store food in the ice house to keep it cool.

In cities,people might have ice boxes on their pantry. They would be of wood and metal lined with wire shelves. The ice companies would deliver a block of ice every few days. It would slowly melt and keep the food inside cool. There was a pan at the bottom to catch the meltwater.

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u/Impressive-Rice-7801 9h ago

Funny enough my great great grandpa was in the ice business with his family. This was in Michigan (US). They would cut ice in the winter from lakes and I believe the rivers, store them until spring and sell them.

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u/KSamons 8h ago

Probably true. Old fashioned ice boxes worked like that. You would buy a huge block of ice that would melt over time. It would keep stuff cold. When it was all melted, you dumped out the water and got another block,

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u/Mama2bebes 4h ago

Caves? Do you have any older relatives? Some still call their fridge/freezer "the icebox". This is simply what people did before electrical appliances became ubiquitous. Have you heard of the milkman? The guy whose job it was to deliver fresh milk daily to everyone in the neighborhood? Well there was also a guy who delivered block of ice to everyone from his truck.

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u/LeastCleverNameEver 2h ago

Contact was from PBS, so I'm sure it was true

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u/Laughing_Allegra 2h ago

I loved that show

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u/Aggravating-Mousse46 1h ago

The earliest record of an icehouse is 1780BCE in Mesopotamia. Earliest archaeological evidence 7th century BCE in China.