not a food but an important adjunct to food and constituent of certain dishes, has been occurring naturally on the planet ever since freezing temperatures were first reached. Its use for culinary purposes certainly dates very far back in China, in cold regions where foods can be frozen by simply leaving them out of doors. Such use in W. Europe can be traced back to medieval times; and in the tropics to the time when advances in maritime transport made it possible to transport ice for long distances by sea (e.g. in the 19th century when ice from New England lakes was taken to the Caribbean, and also to England).
Stobart (1980), who gives an admirable and succinct account of the physics of ice, describes one architectural phenomenon brought about by its use:
Before the invention of refrigerators, winter snow was stored in pits or ice-houses insulated with straw for use later in the year. There is even a huge ice-house in the middle of the great Persian salt desert, a building the size (and rather the shape) of a tennis stadium, where snow was once packed to help people survive the summer's awful heat.
In the 20th century ice came to be taken for granted in most parts of the world as an available resource, and ice cream has been added to the common currency of foods worldwide. The use of water ices is less widespread but has an interesting history; see also sherbet.
Although she did not live to complete the work which was eventually published under the title Harvest of the Cold Months, Elizabeth David had assembled for it a wealth of interesting information and the chapters which she had drafted invest the whole subject with the romantic spirit in which she approached it. See also freezing; refrigeration; snow.
Alan Davidson was a distinguished author and publisher, and one of the world's best-known writers on fish and fish cookery. In 1975 he retired early from the diplomatic service—after serving in, among other places, Washington, Egypt, Tunisia, and Laos, where he was British Ambassador—to pursue a fruitful second career as a food historian and food writer extraordinaire. Among his popular books are Seafood of South-East Asia, North Atlantic Seafood, and Mediterranean Seafood. In 2003, shortly before his death, he was awarded the Erasmus Prize for his contribution to European culture.
Cummings, Richard O. (1949), The American Ice Harvests, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
David, Elizabeth (1994), Harvest of the Cold Months, London: Michael Joseph.
Stobart, Tom (1980), The Cook's Encyclopaedia, London: B. T. Batsford. Also repr 1999, London: Grub Street.
