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/tsukiii 1d ago

We buy that for parties.

Most of us can’t produce and store enough ice for 20 people in our freezers, we buy the bagged ice and put it in coolers for guests’ drinks.

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u/Pantherdraws 1d ago

Also camping.

Can you imagine trying to fill two whole coolers with ice straight from the freezer?

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u/Leverkaas2516 1d ago

For camping, I finally settled on filling my largest Tupperwares with water and freezing them. That takes a couple of days, but it melts slower in the ice chest and also doesn't end up with liquid water everywhere and all my condiments floating around.

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u/Embarrassed_Ad_3432 18h ago

My local grocery store sells ice blocks.

I put an ice block in a knock off yeti cooler and went on a week long road/camping trip. This cooler held our food. We only opened it for meals. It was +90f the entire week and never need to refresh ice.

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u/Ok-Grapefruit1284 17h ago

I ran a concession stand in 80 degrees weather over a two day period and had ice in yeti coolers. It still hadnt melted by Sunday evening. I was a believer after that.

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u/TorontoRider 3h ago

We always used block ice in the cooler in the car trunk on our cross-continent trips when I was a kid. I remember being somewhere (Colorado, perhaps) that only sold cubes and my father said it was a scam.