I remember seeing small ice houses in the Philippines which sold huge block ice and I always wondered how the heck do they not melt. Instead of sawdust they used rice husk for insulation. Way more easier to clean off than sawdust and the ice was safe enough to put in food and drinks too. This video woke up some memories of me and my grandpa buying block ice to use in our coolers when we go to a picnic or waterpark. We had cold drinks all day long even in the hot and humid temperatures of the Philippines. 😄
Very cool! My mom is from the Philippines but she does not know much about her family history, so it is kind of a mystery to me what really happened with our grandparents before we came to the United States.
"rice husk for insulation. Way more easier to clean off than sawdust and the ice was safe enough to put in food and drinks too." that's very nifty info ty for posting that
I'm a modern ice man! It comes in bags of chunks now rather than blocks and we use refrigerated trucks rather than horse drawn carriages with sawdust but we're still around! It's cool to see a video from a guy that has a connection to the early days of the industry that I'm a part of.
I grew up on the Lower East Side in Manhattan in the 1950"s. There were still Icemen who regularly made deliveries to tenements. We would follow the truck around and steal large chips of clear ice from the back of the truck when the Iceman delivered the blocks.
Your fun was certainly more healthy than mine; from the beginning of the Vietnam War through 1969, my father was stationed in Hawaii and we lived in a cute rented bungalow near Waikiki Beach, and nearly every evening the DDT truck would run through, gassing the bugs (and us kids) because all of us would run laughing or riding our bikes through the grayish white DDT fog.
@@seanbrown9048 -- I'll never forget the first time the DDT truck came down our street in 1958 in Savanah, Georgia. I was 8 and I thought it was a fire breathing monster. I ran home as fast as I could.
My dad grew up in Queens, New York City. He told me about the ice man who brought ice to his parents' apartment. There was an ice box in the kitchen, and under the ice box was a pan that collected the melt water. The ice was hauled by a horse-drawn cart. In summer, the kids would beg the ice man for chips of ice.
@@grantlong6586 -- Dad was a little kid during the Great Depression. Icemen were delivering ice in New York City as late as the mid 1950s. Not everyone could afford an electric refrigerator.
As a child in a small Midwest town, I remember ice deliveries to home iceboxes in the 1940's. We had an electric refrigerator but some of our neighbors did not. Small ice houses were also located at gas stations where you could get a block of ice (to make homemade ice cream). Some of the pop machines used a block of ice in water to keep the pop cold.
Interesting. I wonder if that's why it's still so common to see those big ice freezers full of bagged ice at gas stations as opposed to grocery stores.
I’m old enough to remember iceboxes even in my hometown Los Angeles and seeing the iceman using specialized tongs to grab a block of ice from his truck, sling it over his back and carry it into various homes on our street to refill iceboxes. There were even ice machines around town where you could drop a coin and a block of ice would come sliding out, which you could take home to refill your icebox or break into pieces to cool your drinks. Everyone owned an ice pick in those days!😄
Oh yeah and they used waterproof (rubber?) aprons on their left shoulders. There were signs that you put in your window telling the ice man how many pounds to bring up so he didn't have to go to your door twice--no sign, no ice that day. Anyone know how the blocks translated into pounds and how long a block lasted?
As a player of Dungons&Dragons, I greatly appreciate this little dive into refrigeration for world building purposes. I can't wait to see the faces of my players when they are offered a box of ice as compensation for completing a quest.
My grandma once mentioned how glad she was when electric fridges first started being sold and she didn't' have to deal with the constant cleaning and draining of an ice box anymore. She said the first thing she thought of when she smelled mildew was still an ice box. She seemed amazed that she ever put up with it.
@@draculastraphouse7863 bills are the same, people today just have a bunch of crap they don’t need. You old farts bragging gas was 25 cents a gallon yet forget you only made a dollar an hour.
I was a kid back in the 50s living in Little Italy in Baltimore. I remember people were still buying ice from Sergis Ice Co. for their iceboxes. He'd deliver it on a horse and cart. So it wasn't that long ago that people still did things the old way. Great video
It would've been nice to point out that the "industrial ice machines" used ammonia as a refrigerant instead of the freon that is used today, simply because of the stringent odor it produced and its inherent danger. I remember as a teen in Houston, going down to the local ice plant and seeing giant "ice trays" that would rotate based on a timed process for freezing the water (exactly like in the home refrigerator/freezer, but on a larger scale) and the ammonia refrigerant smell was so strong that I could not stay in there long. Also, the huge blocks would be delivered to local family owned stores, where on a Sunday morning the SOUND of the "ice chipper" grinding up the blocks into oddly shaped chips to fill "double waxed paper" 10 lb. bags would wake the dead, as they got ready to supply the locals with ice to carry to Sunday outings at the nearby beaches and parks.
We had a big central ice plant in the town where I grew up. It was beside the railroad tracks in the warehouse district so trains could ice down their produce shipments. Even in the 60s you could still buy the old full size 5 pound blocks. They were great for the ice chest when we went camping. The regular cubes were a full two inches. I was about seven. I remember my dad explaining to me why there was a faint ammonia smell there.
Adam should do a video on why cheese doesn’t re-form after it melts if he hasn’t already. Edit: I’m fairly aware of how it works, but let’s be real we'd listen to Adam explain why we wear clothes in public at the drop of a hat
@@Johnny.Picklez long story short is that the proteins in the milk change forms thanks to the culture/bacteria added in, turning the liquid solid. Its like cooking an egg more or less. But yeah I'd love to see a more detailed video essay
Thanks for sharing some family history - these stories are fascinating! My parents who were born in the early '30s has ice boxes growing up. My dad used to tell stories about how he and his friends would wait for the ice man to go into a house then they would take his awl and chisel off little pieces of ice until he came back and ran them off. My dad also called the refrigerator an ice box his whole life. And the bit about not having the door open makes sense too - and also explains even more why I'd get yelled at when I did that as a kid :)
I’m old enough to remember the ice wagon coming every week. (It was a horse drawn carriage, but so was the milk wagon that came every day and the milkman put milk bottles on our doorstep) The good old days. We had an ice box in our kitchen. The ice man would cut a block, wrap it in potato sacking, pick it up with an ice pincher, and carry it into our house. The ice fit on top of the icebox, in a lidded, insulated box with air slots on the bottom, that allowed the cold air to circulate through the icebox. As it melted the water would drip into a small tray at the bottom. (My job, as a small boy, was to empty the tray every day.) Our icebox was only used to store milk, butter and a few fresh goods. Vegetables were stored in pantry room with air vents. The tool all kids weren’t allowed to play with, but every kid wanted to use was the ice pick. Cold drink, anyone?
Thanks, I enjoyed this. My brother remembers in the 1950's when the neighborhood candy store still used blocks of ice to cool ...he remembers soda specifically. This was in a large City in NJ. Maybe commercial freezers/refrigerators were expensive.
I love how although our technology is way different from what our ancestors had, we share the same mentality of businesses and figuring out how to get things done. I love learning about small details in history because it makes me remember that people from the past aren’t just an old name in history but they were just like we are now, perhaps only in different clothes and speaking different slang. Makes them feel more real rather than just a history lesson.
I remember being obliged to live without a fridge for about a year in the heat of the Mediterranean. It really taught me a lot about how people prepared and consumed food in the era before mass refrigeration
People went shopping a lot more, and cooked daily, but then again, there were a lot more 'housewives' staying home to go to the market and cook daily. Old advertisements for electric refrigerators, mention how you only have to go to the market 2 or 3 times a week, and you can leave the house on the weekends, with out worrying about your food spoiling. You could even come home to food that was still fresh! And no water to worry about emptying from the 'drain pan' from the block of ice, in the ice box.
@@kfl611 And subsequently, even the shopping itself was speeded up. While I do enjoy shopping at specialty shops (greengrocers, butchers etc.) once in a while, we tend to forget how much the self-service supermarket changed the purchasing process. Before self-service supermarkets, housewives would have to do their food shopping at around a handful different specialty shops (e.g. greengrocer, butcher, dairy, dry goods, possibly a fishmonger and so forth) and have to be served by a counter clerk at each of them, limiting how many customers could be served at once. Hence, such daily/frequent shopping that may take half an hour today could easily take an hour or two or even more, depending on how the shops and the home were located and whether the shops had a queue at the time of purchase.
I know where I used to live they had 2 butcher shops and a fish shop, which I thought was so quaint. But they were very expensive. It was like stepping back in time. I'm glad we don't have to rely on the ice box any more.
When I lived in Saratoga Springs, NY in the early 70s, I was AMAZED that ice and snow which had accumulated all winter was still there in late May and early June.
Seven-11 stores were once ice houses. I'm 74. When I was a kid there was still a Southland ice house in my mom's home town. (I think my grandmother already had a "frigidaire", so we didn't need it.) The ice house also rented on-site freezers for private storage of venison and such. When the ice houses converted to convenience stores, Southland named them 7-11, indicating they were open from 7AM to 11PM.
My dad was an Ice Man in the 1930's and I still remember the ice house in my home town that produced blocks of ice through the 1960's. It really wasn't that long ago.
My grand dad and his brothers did the same. They cut and stacked the ice off the lake, as well as delivering it through the year. And there are a remnants of 4 different icehouses just down the road from us today. They would build a house over a small stream in a sharp valley. Im guessing the water would fill the house during the winter and freeze. They would then saw the ice right in the house.
I have chatted with many older folks in my area of Virginia and they have told me that when they were young it was not uncommon for people to use spring houses (or variants thereof) in rural areas to preserve food. All you needed was a cold water source and obviously it didn't rely on electricity.
My mom told me that when she lived on the farm as a child, her grandma had a big room like a pantry that was insulated and kept cool to preserve food. In such a tropical place it makes sense why they'd have that before having a fridge.
Wow I never realized I miss "cold endings" so much. This feels so nice. No ad read, no asking to like share subscribe... So warm and welcoming and refreshing
8:37 "You look a lot like him" and your son looks a lot like _you_. This confirms my theory that Adam is from a lineage of clones with the Regusea dynasty only marrying to cover their tracks.
Persian/Arabic/Egyptian ancient cooling systems are extremely cool in general. Chimneys that use wind currents to create a low-pressure area outside a window drawing up air from a basement that connects to underground water channels flowing all the way from cold mountain springs, and things like that.
Both my great grandfathers on my dad's side were Icemen. Lived in a booming Slavic American meatpacking district. One was Polish and fell fortunate, working in the Ice industry all his life, The Slovene one retired into the Ice Business, before then being a Jungle type packing labourer.
My Grampa used to talk about harvesting ice when he was a boy, around 1900. All the neighborhood farmers got together and cut ice on the local ponds. My Great Grandfather had a large ice house on his farm where the neighborhood supply was stored, buried in sawdust.
I remember history lessons like this 50 odd years ago.They were so interesting that I never forgot them. I hope it is still taught like this today! Thanks Adam.
As the grandson of an ice man.I found this quite interesting. My grandfather had an ice coal and oil business in Southern CT back in the 1930's. Also an Italian American.
Loved this video. Used to work at an ice plant here in my country (El Salvador), it's a beautiful process. Also, I always recall the inital phrase of "Cien años de soledad" when Aureliano Buendía went to see the ice for the first time.
Thanks for this one! I'm from one of those New England ice towns (Arlington, MA) and it's neat to get more context for what used to be our main industry.
I find family history fascinating. It’s amazing to me how similar we are to family members we have never met, and possibly only seen in pictures. In some cases, we are their spitting image and work in similar industries.
Me too. I love hearing about other peoples family history. I like hearing the stories of immigrants to the US and why they decided to make the trip, what they did for work etc.
It's videos like this that make Adam's channel uniquely interesting because unlike other TH-cam cooking shows, it's not always just "Here's how to cook this thing" every video. All of the content is still tied to cooking, or cooking related. And I learn a lot every video!
I love your family's story! I am Italian American and I knew my great granarents. They gave me so many stories on their history. Lucky to have that knowledge. Greetings from Boston!
I've actually seen some of the first "ice boxes" that was converted to "refrigerators" by Westinghouse & they did not look at all shabby like you might imagine.
As late as the 1950s, and probably beyond, we would row our boat across the lake in Maine to collect our ice blocks from the ice house, where the ice was stored semi-underground surrounded by sawdust. Once back at our cabin we would put it in the "ice box" for food storage. For many years afterwards, we referred to our refrigerator as the icebox.
My grandfather was a milkman/iceman back in the 1940s thru the '60s n our community. I grew up in a small midwest farming town(16k people) & many houses didn't have electricity installed until the 1950s or '60s. So ice boxes were used much later into the 20th century than n cities. Door to door glass milk bottles & ice blocks(if needed) delivered daily. My parents still have a couple pairs of the giant ice tongs that he used to use to clamp on blocks & carry the blocks from his diary truck to the homes. They've got a pair of ice tongs on the wall like Adam's parents & some empty glass milk bottles inside the metal carrier for the bottles as decoration as well
wow, this is sooo amazing. We are so lucky to have been born in the present times, Can you imagine how it must have been for a middle orlower class families to live their lives without all of the things we take for granted today. This is fascinating
you hit it right on the head my dad was born in 22 our generations are the first too have enjoyed supreme inventions that made life a ease.. indoor plumbing electricity,, refridgeration, oil gas heat . the model t car.,air planes jets, light bulbs ,music recording ..television, telephones and penicillin you name it ..
My grandpa delivered Ice. Used to love to tell the story. A bit later in the 20s he drove an old Ice truck on a daily route in Wisconsin. Neat thing about the story is he started the route about 12 or 13 and delivered ice until he was 16. He said when he turned 16 he went in to town hall and asked for a drivers license. The Sheriff who was in charge of such matters told him this. Son I been watching you pull that ice truck in and outta town for years. Asked if he had enough money to pay? When my Grandpa said ya he gave him his license then and there. Always enjoyed that story! Grandpa went on to be Truck Driver all his life!
My folks had a cabin at Clear Lake, Ca. I remember the icebox, it was a "Brohn", a fine oak case and the interior was enameled steel. We would get our ice blocks from the Lakeshore Ice Co. In the early 50's, the Brohn gave way to a 1926 G. E. "Monitor top"! That fridge ran like a sewing machine...so quite and efficient. We sold the property in 1960...who knows, perhaps the G.E. is still a cool machine! A friend of mine has one he uses as a beer and soft drink cooler...nearing a century old!
My dad remembered when the ice man brought ice to his parents' house. The ice melted into a pan under the ice box, so the pan had to be emptied regularly.
I just found this youtube channel and I'm instantly hooked, mostly because every time he introduces a sponsor, it's so perfectly incorporated that I can't help but squeal like Lucille when she finds out it's really Gene Parmesan. Also, that Frederick guy totally proves Food Network's Geoffrey Zakarian is a time traveler.
I grew up in Maine on a lake and my grandfather used to cut ice from the lake when he was a young man. In fact, that was one of the main sources of oncome for families in that area during winter. The only other industry that could compete was the logging industry, but these two go hand and hand. The lake would freeze to 3 or 4 feet thick during the winter
Growing up in New York City, on Bank St., we had an ice box. I still remember the iceman hauling a block of ice on his back up the stairs to our apartment and shaping it to fit in our icebox.
Growing up my family had an antique ice box that we used as a bookshelf it’s one of my favorite pieces of furniture that my family has I was always so fascinated with it
Adam , really enjoyed the History of how earlier generations did what ever they could to obtain ice to keep their food and drink cold enough to last several days. Your historical research was excellent and so was your Narration and an extra nice touch was interviewing relatives that were old enough to remember personal contacts and general information. Our pampered and spoiled generation takes most of the appliances, technology and our modern homes for granted as if they were always here. That includes our modern Refrigerators with Ice Makers and Air Conditioning.
When I was small I’m 70 now my dad had a delivery truck to deliver meat to stores . Well that truck had compartments for blocks of ice . Well used to go to the ice house in Phillips burg n j to buy man made ice picked it up with ice tongs and it was cut with just an ice pick . It amazed me how the workers cut those big blocks the size of a coffin to manageable blocks and they were pretty square when done
Nah, that was actually a glitch but everybody was doing videos on it that a new world update was quickly made and the glitch was quickly patch, but thats how people got really rich, unfortunately, nobody has been able to create the glitch in the current update, i guess that that update was the one and killed the temp glitch once and for all, there were updates that tried to patch it of course but people quickly found a way to recreate it, talking about world: the roleplay of course
Hey Adam I just want to say that when I first started watching your channel it was because of your no nonsense methodology and approach to cooking but now these Monday research videos are the reason why I truly appreciate you.
"You gotta start selling this stuff for more than a dollar a bag. We lost four more men on this expedition." "If you know of a better way to get ice, I'd like to hear it." --Apu
My grandfather and his brothers cut ice in the winter, stored in sawdust from the sawmill, and delivered to Red Deer in the summer. This, along with hauling coal in the winter was how they supplemented the farm in central Alberta.
My grandfather's village in East Belarus had communal ice storage. The ice would be harvested from the river in winter and stored in cellars lined with bales of straw for better insulation. The ice would be used during the rest of the year. This system was still operating in 1960, even though they had electricity since 1940s, because fridges were rare and expensive.
My great grandfather (born 1896, lived in North Dakota) would talk about filling the icehouse with ice from the pond in the winter and digging coal from the hillside in the summer to heat and cook through the winter.
Okay... This is heavily focused on keeping stuff cold with Ice. Want to hear about another thing that was used to preserve food in cold enviroment? CELLAR. Much more accessible, working good enough and not needing anything really. For example around the time people in NY you mentioned using Iceboxes people in central and eastern Europe were still using cellars. And in wine making and beer making? They often used cellars dug into a solid rock. If you ever were in a cave on a hot day you know the difference in temperature inside and outside can be quite extreme (as to being able to go in shorts and t-shirt outside and having to take on a hoodie and pants inside not to freeze).
@@chickenfishhybrid44 The cellars in US however are usually not meant for cooling things (notice I specificaly focused on the ones dug into rock because those were meant for cooling stuff especialy when it comes to wine, they are also noticably deeper) but as an aditional storage or protection from ground radiation (radon). So you are right. You will find houses with cellars in the US but their intended use differes (I am not talking about those). And you are also right about the climate being hotter in certain parts of the US then again I adressed this with my comparison of the cellar to the cave (and this applies even to hotter climates). To further prove this there are whole underground cities in Turkey for example where you can visit and try this. The explanation is quite simple - heat from the sun doesnt reach there and rock can be a great heat isolant. Its the same reason why in desert it can be incredibly hot during the day and incredibly cold during the night. So hotter climate doesnt really matter in this case.
@@martinbudinsky8912 I'm talking about "root cellars" as they're often referred to used to keep produce you often grew yourself cool. I brought up the climate in the US being hotter because your specifically said Central and Eastern Europe. I know that others places used cellars as well, I understand that cellars under a home in the US aren't necessarily the same as what you mean. However obviously the concept is
My grandparents did use their cellar to keep stuff cold. It wasn't carved in stone or anything, in reality it was even above the ground, but had really thick walls that kept the temperature relatively stable. My other grandparents however did not have a cellar. So, grandpa dug a hole alongside a stream in the forest, among a bunch of rocks, and bang. Refrigerator thingy that cooled beer and could make cold deserts. In the forest.
In Northern Europe you can still come across root cellars on the countryside. My parents built their house in the early 2000's and we have separate root cellar for storing potatoes, carrots, ligonberry jam and other sorts of jam and juices and it's always in use :D
That thing about the ice box is really funny. My 88 year old grandmother would always shout at us as kids to “close the ice box!”, if we had the refrigerator open too long. Anyone know how late in time ice boxes were used regularly in Boston? Maybe she just heard it from her own parents and grandparents and it carried over. Love this video btw
I had a grandmother on my mom's side who lived in western NY State and had an icebox refrigerator until the early 1970's. The house lost its electricity in a 1936 flood and was never reinstated as were poor. I remember it well when visiting her, the ice man coming around, you left a sign on a post of your porch to tell them you needed ice.
Small tidbit about Kingdom of Heaven: it's a widely popular movie in the Arab world because of the Syrian actor portraying Saladin (Ghassan Massoud) and the positive portrayal of the character. Thus I have no choice but to tell Adam that Kingdom of Heaven is the perfect movie and no ill-talk of it is allowed!!
the positive portrayal of the character might be why he thinks it is a very stupid movie ,somepeople cant stand 1 movie in 10000 postively portraying muslims
I've lived in Yuma but also lived at a higher elevation in the Chihuahuan desert close to the continental divide in New Mexico. Yes it can get very cold there
If you live in the Phoenix metro you're also dealing with the unnatural heat island effect of having 6 million people crammed into a relatively small areas filled with nothing but glass, concrete, brick and so on that absorb heat all day and then radiate heat all night sometimes never allowing the temperature to drop below even 90° on those 115° to 120° days.
@@josephbeckmann8106 I lived in Phoenix on base housing for quite some time and every winter there would be frost on the ground especially near the concrete.dont know if it's cause things are getting warmer or what but it was there when I was.
Still have a pair of *ice tongs* in my Grandmother's shed from the daze when she had ice delivered to her house - 9:28 As late as the 1980s, behind most small general stores you had these *compressors* in chicken wire cages behind the store chugging way, blowing hot air as you walked by. These were for the refrigerators in the store where you kept beer, soda, etc.
I know your comment is 8 months old but I know of a documentary that's pretty much exactly this. it's an oldish 2 hour PBS documentary th-cam.com/video/5LNd8XM5XYs/w-d-xo.html
The extended cut of kingdom of heaven is practically an entirely different movie with all the added stuff that does end up making the movie better Although historical accuracy isn't always important
My Dad was born in 1913, and in the early 50's when I was about 4 or 5, I remember dad bringing a block of ice home after work once or twice a week for out "icebox"... Then we got new Coldspot fridge.. I thought it was great and would try to see if the light in the "Coldspot" fridge did go out when the door closed!!
What I remember vividly is in the early 60's we had a hurricane that killed power for almost 2 weeks. Only 1 location in Baton Rouge had power and ice and we would make trips every day or so to buy 20 pound blocks of ice.
Good good brief history of the ice trade. We still have an ice house currently operating in my Southern city. PS - Historical inaccuracies notwithstanding, Kingdom of Heaven is a quite a good flick, if, as others have responded here, you watch the Directors Cut, which restores the emotional logic and fills numerous plot holes. Seriously. In my opinion. I wonder what Adam's criteria are for a good movie? Anyway, I like his mini-histories.
13:10 it’s like a real life Romeo & Juliet. Only difference being the poison they picked was a wine zealot.
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In Sundsvall, Sweden, they use plowed snow to cool the hospital in the summer. They dump the snow down in a special pit with pipes, and when the pit is filled to the brim as a moutain. They then cover it in sawdust and that keeps the snow covered from the sun and keeps it cold for almost the entire summer.
This is awesome I actually know a lot about this subject. I grew up in a town called Gouldsboro in Pennsylvania in the Pocono’s area. We had a state park we could go swimming and fishing at and on the other side of the lake was railroad tracks. The tracks were barely used anymore and there were all these buildings on the tracks. Come to find out this lake was dug out and made bigger with a dam so they could cut and harvest huge ice blocks in the winter load them directly onto the train and send them to NY City, Philadelphia etc for people to use in there Ice Box.
I love the new history side to the channel, your history background really shows and it is very entertaining to watch these videos in between cooking videos ! also, kingdom of heaven is my guilty pleasure, fight me
Way to go Adam! Thank you for sharing us these historical infos that we normallycome across and usually ignore. We learn while having fun watching your videos😃
I remember the iceman visiting my grandparents house. He was a giant of a man and he had a leather cape over one shoulder. He would hold the block of ice on that leather cape with ice tongs and then with one sweeping motion he would put the block of ice in the “icebox” in the kitchen. The iceman was a giant.
My great-grandmother still had an icebox in her kitchen when I was a little kid, and my grandfather had a thriving business selling home furnaces and refrigerators that could run on LP gas. He also sold the gas, so people who were off the grid could get refrigerators and heat their homes. He made a nice living that way. BTW, he also hacked his delivery trucks to run on LP gas. Lol.
Adam's becoming more of a social studies teacher than before and I'm loving it
Me too!
he's the cool social studies teacher that shows the class how to make ice cream on off days and brings in mac and cheese on test days
Adam was a lecturer for a university before he decided to do TH-cam fulltime a few months ago.
@@trcs3079 the more you know.. good looks👍
Wait no but I suck at social studies
I never tought that a video about refrigeration could be so heart warming
How ironic.
i c what u did there XD
@@kirkcalixte6671 ice see what he did there too
@@ligerfelikscayanga7361no'ice'
The more you snow 🌠
Now I understand why Adam Ragusea is so cool. It's in his blood.
GREAT comment ;-)
This comment is pretty COOL
Cute uncle nerd
Ba dum tss
The Ice man spins tales of old....
I remember seeing small ice houses in the Philippines which sold huge block ice and I always wondered how the heck do they not melt. Instead of sawdust they used rice husk for insulation. Way more easier to clean off than sawdust and the ice was safe enough to put in food and drinks too. This video woke up some memories of me and my grandpa buying block ice to use in our coolers when we go to a picnic or waterpark. We had cold drinks all day long even in the hot and humid temperatures of the Philippines. 😄
Very cool! My mom is from the Philippines but she does not know much about her family history, so it is kind of a mystery to me what really happened with our grandparents before we came to the United States.
"rice husk for insulation. Way more easier to clean off than sawdust and the ice was safe enough to put in food and drinks too."
that's very nifty info
ty for posting that
I'm a modern ice man! It comes in bags of chunks now rather than blocks and we use refrigerated trucks rather than horse drawn carriages with sawdust but we're still around! It's cool to see a video from a guy that has a connection to the early days of the industry that I'm a part of.
I've been an iceman for 35 years, own lots of old ice equipment.
Thank you two for being cool dudes
@@rustyshackleford4958 lol pun
Your job seems real chill 😎
That’s a cool job
At 66 years of age I'm not exactly an Internet groupie, but I must say I really do enjoy your channel.
Age is all relative, You don't need a youth group card to participate in the world.
CraftyChicken91 that’s such a great way to put it, and so true.
This warms my heart
Join the club. We welcome you with open arms
DaatBoi99 pun intended?
I grew up on the Lower East Side in Manhattan in the 1950"s. There were still Icemen who regularly made deliveries to tenements. We would follow the truck around and steal large chips of clear ice from the back of the truck when the Iceman delivered the blocks.
Didn’t take a whole a lot for kids to have fun in those days.right???
MOSTLY PEOPLE WENT TO THE ICE MAN
HE WAS ON THE CORNERS. CHIPPED YOU OFF YOUR SIZE. 10, 20, 30 CENTS! YOU HAULED IT HOME
You thieves! But I guess it's water under the bridge or ice maybe?
Your fun was certainly more healthy than mine; from the beginning of the Vietnam War through 1969, my father was stationed in Hawaii and we lived in a cute rented bungalow near Waikiki Beach, and nearly every evening the DDT truck would run through, gassing the bugs (and us kids) because all of us would run laughing or riding our bikes through the grayish white DDT fog.
@@seanbrown9048 -- I'll never forget the first time the DDT truck came down our street in 1958 in Savanah, Georgia. I was 8 and I thought it was a fire breathing monster. I ran home as fast as I could.
My dad grew up in Queens, New York City. He told me about the ice man who brought ice to his parents' apartment. There was an ice box in the kitchen, and under the ice box was a pan that collected the melt water. The ice was hauled by a horse-drawn cart. In summer, the kids would beg the ice man for chips of ice.
Dang just how old are you?
@@grantlong6586 -- Dad was a little kid during the Great Depression. Icemen were delivering ice in New York City as late as the mid 1950s. Not everyone could afford an electric refrigerator.
DON'T FORGET THE CHOPPING MACHINE & HORSE DRAWN CART !
THEM ICE TONGS !!!
BURLAP PADS ?
1955
@@kevinbyrne4538
THERE WERE GAS OPERATED REFRIGERATOR !
@@abcdef-kx2qt -- Yes. The ice man would carry the block of ice slung over his shoulder, cushioned by a burlap pad.
As a child in a small Midwest town, I remember ice deliveries to home iceboxes in the 1940's. We had an electric refrigerator but some of our neighbors did not. Small ice houses were also located at gas stations where you could get a block of ice (to make homemade ice cream). Some of the pop machines used a block of ice in water to keep the pop cold.
Interesting. I wonder if that's why it's still so common to see those big ice freezers full of bagged ice at gas stations as opposed to grocery stores.
God bless you for using the correct term - "pop".
@@jeffschweitzer4818 facts
@@jeffschweitzer4818 it's soda pop though
One of my Dad's first jobs in 1939, when he was 12 years old, was home delivering ice for people's iceboxes.
I’m old enough to remember iceboxes even in my hometown Los Angeles and seeing the iceman using specialized tongs to grab a block of ice from his truck, sling it over his back and carry it into various homes on our street to refill iceboxes. There were even ice machines around town where you could drop a coin and a block of ice would come sliding out, which you could take home to refill your icebox or break into pieces to cool your drinks. Everyone owned an ice pick in those days!😄
Oh yeah and they used waterproof (rubber?) aprons on their left shoulders. There were signs that you put in your window telling the ice man how many pounds to bring up so he didn't have to go to your door twice--no sign, no ice that day. Anyone know how the blocks translated into pounds and how long a block lasted?
"My italian-american father was an Iceman." was a line I only thought I'd hear in a mafia documentary
The Iceman was actually Polish.
Billy Batts told me to go home and get my icebox
I did 20 years in the can .... not a peep
@@jjarichardson shinebox ;)
@@criticalmass527 He never had the makings of a varsity iceman
As a player of Dungons&Dragons, I greatly appreciate this little dive into refrigeration for world building purposes. I can't wait to see the faces of my players when they are offered a box of ice as compensation for completing a quest.
Hey that's a great job opportunity for frost mages
watch them use it to win a bossfight
The true neutral player is going to just try and sell it lol
Wouldn't wizards be able to just make ice?
@@missingclover Not everyone's a wizard.
Why Grandpa Ragusea iced his freezer instead of freezing his ice.
Underrated comment
omegalul
definetly a underrated comment
Out of all the why I x my x instead of x my x, this is truly the one most deserving of a pin.
@@ahsaiiara r/whoosh
My grandma once mentioned how glad she was when electric fridges first started being sold and she didn't' have to deal with the constant cleaning and draining of an ice box anymore. She said the first thing she thought of when she smelled mildew was still an ice box.
She seemed amazed that she ever put up with it.
Well, thems were the days kiddo...
Thank your Granddad!
Then became a new bill. So happy🎉
@@KQwest98 Bills weren't out of control back then like they are today, you kids are so arrogant
@@draculastraphouse7863 bills are the same, people today just have a bunch of crap they don’t need.
You old farts bragging gas was 25 cents a gallon yet forget you only made a dollar an hour.
I was a kid back in the 50s living in Little Italy in Baltimore. I remember people were still buying ice from Sergis Ice Co. for their iceboxes. He'd deliver it on a horse and cart. So it wasn't that long ago that people still did things the old way. Great video
It would've been nice to point out that the "industrial ice machines" used ammonia as a refrigerant instead of the freon that is used today, simply because of the stringent odor it produced and its inherent danger. I remember as a teen in Houston, going down to the local ice plant and seeing giant "ice trays" that would rotate based on a timed process for freezing the water (exactly like in the home refrigerator/freezer, but on a larger scale) and the ammonia refrigerant smell was so strong that I could not stay in there long. Also, the huge blocks would be delivered to local family owned stores, where on a Sunday morning the SOUND of the "ice chipper" grinding up the blocks into oddly shaped chips to fill "double waxed paper" 10 lb. bags would wake the dead, as they got ready to supply the locals with ice to carry to Sunday outings at the nearby beaches and parks.
We’re back to using ammonia
Ammonia is still used in large scale industrial refrigeration, despite the risks.
We had a big central ice plant in the town where I grew up. It was beside the railroad tracks in the warehouse district so trains could ice down their produce shipments. Even in the 60s you could still buy the old full size 5 pound blocks. They were great for the ice chest when we went camping. The regular cubes were a full two inches. I was about seven. I remember my dad explaining to me why there was a faint ammonia smell there.
Adam should do a video on why cheese doesn’t re-form after it melts if he hasn’t already. Edit: I’m fairly aware of how it works, but let’s be real we'd listen to Adam explain why we wear clothes in public at the drop of a hat
Yeah how TF does queso stay queso
@@Johnny.Picklez long story short is that the proteins in the milk change forms thanks to the culture/bacteria added in, turning the liquid solid. Its like cooking an egg more or less. But yeah I'd love to see a more detailed video essay
@@Johnny.Picklez Do you mean queso dip - the liquid cheese in Mexican-American restaurants? Or do you mean queso fresco?
Adam Ragusea I think he means liquid cheese
@@aragusea queso cheese dip
Dang the connection of Adam's family to the fridge history is so fascinating
Thanks for sharing some family history - these stories are fascinating! My parents who were born in the early '30s has ice boxes growing up. My dad used to tell stories about how he and his friends would wait for the ice man to go into a house then they would take his awl and chisel off little pieces of ice until he came back and ran them off. My dad also called the refrigerator an ice box his whole life. And the bit about not having the door open makes sense too - and also explains even more why I'd get yelled at when I did that as a kid :)
I’m old enough to remember the ice wagon coming every week. (It was a horse drawn carriage, but so was the milk wagon that came every day and the milkman put milk bottles on our doorstep) The good old days.
We had an ice box in our kitchen. The ice man would cut a block, wrap it in potato sacking, pick it up with an ice pincher, and carry it into our house. The ice fit on top of the icebox, in a lidded, insulated box with air slots on the bottom, that allowed the cold air to circulate through the icebox. As it melted the water would drip into a small tray at the bottom. (My job, as a small boy, was to empty the tray every day.)
Our icebox was only used to store milk, butter and a few fresh goods. Vegetables were stored in pantry room with air vents.
The tool all kids weren’t allowed to play with, but every kid wanted to use was the ice pick.
Cold drink, anyone?
"Hey, want a cold drink?"
Yeah
_leaves to go get mountain ice_
ah shit i laughed
This is not funny
@@robotbanana4261 good for you
5 months later "I'm back sorry it took so long"
Surely makes you wonder who, or what first invented Mountain Dew.
I love how your father is still a bit pissed that his wife's grand father put his grand father out of business 😂😂
Not his grandfather just his father. It’s adams grandfather.
Adam's parents are the Romeo and Juliet of food storage cooling
Ah yes u have my thoughts as well
Romeo and Juliet? I assume they bith commited suicide out of a strong sense of love for each other
Thanks, I enjoyed this. My brother remembers in the 1950's when the neighborhood candy store still used blocks of ice to cool ...he remembers soda specifically. This was in a large City in NJ.
Maybe commercial freezers/refrigerators were expensive.
I love how although our technology is way different from what our ancestors had, we share the same mentality of businesses and figuring out how to get things done. I love learning about small details in history because it makes me remember that people from the past aren’t just an old name in history but they were just like we are now, perhaps only in different clothes and speaking different slang. Makes them feel more real rather than just a history lesson.
I bust out laughing when you pronounced "Yakhchāl"! What a surprise! Yakh means ice, and chāl means ditch/hole. Ice ditch. Makes sense lol
Woah. Yakh in Pashto (a related language) means "cold". I guess that must've come from the same root
@@DrRiq
Both are in the Iranian languages family :)
Made it sound like a Native American tribe.... like Choctaw. 😄
گفت "یکچال"
نمی دونم چرا نمی تونن خ بگن
همش می گن ک
I remember being obliged to live without a fridge for about a year in the heat of the Mediterranean. It really taught me a lot about how people prepared and consumed food in the era before mass refrigeration
A less exotic example - living in a hotel room for an extended period of time.
People went shopping a lot more, and cooked daily, but then again, there were a lot more 'housewives' staying home to go to the market and cook daily. Old advertisements for electric refrigerators, mention how you only have to go to the market 2 or 3 times a week, and you can leave the house on the weekends, with out worrying about your food spoiling. You could even come home to food that was still fresh! And no water to worry about emptying from the 'drain pan' from the block of ice, in the ice box.
@@kfl611 And subsequently, even the shopping itself was speeded up. While I do enjoy shopping at specialty shops (greengrocers, butchers etc.) once in a while, we tend to forget how much the self-service supermarket changed the purchasing process.
Before self-service supermarkets, housewives would have to do their food shopping at around a handful different specialty shops (e.g. greengrocer, butcher, dairy, dry goods, possibly a fishmonger and so forth) and have to be served by a counter clerk at each of them, limiting how many customers could be served at once.
Hence, such daily/frequent shopping that may take half an hour today could easily take an hour or two or even more, depending on how the shops and the home were located and whether the shops had a queue at the time of purchase.
I know where I used to live they had 2 butcher shops and a fish shop, which I thought was so quaint. But they were very expensive. It was like stepping back in time. I'm glad we don't have to rely on the ice box any more.
It would be an everyday thing. Just think today something as small as making something to eat was a whole journey back then.
When I lived in Saratoga Springs, NY in the early 70s, I was AMAZED that ice and snow which had accumulated all winter was still there in late May and early June.
I visited Yellowstone in July one year and there was still some snow under trees where it stayed shady.
Seven-11 stores were once ice houses. I'm 74. When I was a kid there was still a Southland ice house in my mom's home town. (I think my grandmother already had a "frigidaire", so we didn't need it.) The ice house also rented on-site freezers for private storage of venison and such. When the ice houses converted to convenience stores, Southland named them 7-11, indicating they were open from 7AM to 11PM.
My dad was an Ice Man in the 1930's and I still remember the ice house in my home town that produced blocks of ice through the 1960's. It really wasn't that long ago.
My grand dad and his brothers did the same. They cut and stacked the ice off the lake, as well as delivering it through the year.
And there are a remnants of 4 different icehouses just down the road from us today. They would build a house over a small stream in a sharp valley. Im guessing the water would fill the house during the winter and freeze. They would then saw the ice right in the house.
I love seeing Adam's family. I feel like I can totally see where he gets it all
Adam is no longer just a home cook now, he’s a history teacher.
I have chatted with many older folks in my area of Virginia and they have told me that when they were young it was not uncommon for people to use spring houses (or variants thereof) in rural areas to preserve food. All you needed was a cold water source and obviously it didn't rely on electricity.
My grandma used the well to keep things cool.
My mom told me that when she lived on the farm as a child, her grandma had a big room like a pantry that was insulated and kept cool to preserve food. In such a tropical place it makes sense why they'd have that before having a fridge.
Billions still don't have a fridge, but they do without it.
Wow I never realized I miss "cold endings" so much. This feels so nice. No ad read, no asking to like share subscribe... So warm and welcoming and refreshing
Because he did that mid video instead? Tf lol he still bullshitin
8:37 "You look a lot like him" and your son looks a lot like _you_. This confirms my theory that Adam is from a lineage of clones with the Regusea dynasty only marrying to cover their tracks.
Persian/Arabic/Egyptian ancient cooling systems are extremely cool in general. Chimneys that use wind currents to create a low-pressure area outside a window drawing up air from a basement that connects to underground water channels flowing all the way from cold mountain springs, and things like that.
Both my great grandfathers on my dad's side were Icemen. Lived in a booming Slavic American meatpacking district. One was Polish and fell fortunate, working in the Ice industry all his life, The Slovene one retired into the Ice Business, before then being a Jungle type packing labourer.
My Grampa used to talk about harvesting ice when he was a boy, around 1900. All the neighborhood farmers got together and cut ice on the local ponds. My Great Grandfather had a large ice house on his farm where the neighborhood supply was stored, buried in sawdust.
The guy who invented refrigeration is a legend
They must be pretty cool
what is your favourite thing to finger?
@@daddysuburban1029 old grandmas
what the hell is up with your name
Pretty cool person, right.
I remember history lessons like this 50 odd years ago.They were so interesting that I never forgot them. I hope it is still taught like this today! Thanks Adam.
“The very stupid 2005 movie Kingdom of Heaven”
*laughs in director’s cut*
A bit better, but not much, imho.
Adam Ragusea fair enough
Adam Ragusea Roger Ebert would like to have a word
Adam Ragusea
Why very stupid?
@@sonyab81
1:39
As the grandson of an ice man.I found this quite interesting. My grandfather had an ice coal and oil business in Southern CT back in the 1930's. Also an Italian American.
Loved this video. Used to work at an ice plant here in my country (El Salvador), it's a beautiful process. Also, I always recall the inital phrase of "Cien años de soledad" when Aureliano Buendía went to see the ice for the first time.
I’m loving the science/history videos Adam keep em coming.
Thanks for this one! I'm from one of those New England ice towns (Arlington, MA) and it's neat to get more context for what used to be our main industry.
I find family history fascinating. It’s amazing to me how similar we are to family members we have never met, and possibly only seen in pictures. In some cases, we are their spitting image and work in similar industries.
Me too. I love hearing about other peoples family history. I like hearing the stories of immigrants to the US and why they decided to make the trip, what they did for work etc.
It's videos like this that make Adam's channel uniquely interesting because unlike other TH-cam cooking shows, it's not always just "Here's how to cook this thing" every video. All of the content is still tied to cooking, or cooking related. And I learn a lot every video!
I love your family's story! I am Italian American and I knew my great granarents. They gave me so many stories on their history. Lucky to have that knowledge. Greetings from Boston!
Adam, I must say I love how you say iran properly.
I love the recent content, definitely more people need to see it!
I'm from Scotland and we have the remains of an ice house in the village I grew up in! Great to learn more about it
I've actually seen some of the first "ice boxes" that was converted to "refrigerators" by Westinghouse & they did not look at all shabby like you might imagine.
As late as the 1950s, and probably beyond, we would row our boat across the lake in Maine to collect our ice blocks from the ice house, where the ice was stored semi-underground surrounded by sawdust. Once back at our cabin we would put it in the "ice box" for food storage. For many years afterwards, we referred to our refrigerator as the icebox.
My grandfather was a milkman/iceman back in the 1940s thru the '60s n our community. I grew up in a small midwest farming town(16k people) & many houses didn't have electricity installed until the 1950s or '60s. So ice boxes were used much later into the 20th century than n cities. Door to door glass milk bottles & ice blocks(if needed) delivered daily. My parents still have a couple pairs of the giant ice tongs that he used to use to clamp on blocks & carry the blocks from his diary truck to the homes. They've got a pair of ice tongs on the wall like Adam's parents & some empty glass milk bottles inside the metal carrier for the bottles as decoration as well
Your grandfather was in the X-men? Cool!
Grandma Ragusea or as we know her: Jean Gray
An original member, even!
wow, this is sooo amazing. We are so lucky to have been born in the present times, Can you imagine how it must have been for a middle orlower class families to live their lives without all of the things we take for granted today. This is fascinating
you hit it right on the head my dad was born in 22 our generations are the first too have enjoyed supreme inventions that made life a ease.. indoor plumbing electricity,, refridgeration, oil gas heat . the model t car.,air planes jets, light bulbs ,music recording ..television, telephones and penicillin you name it ..
our refrigerator's been broken for almost a month now (waiting on parts/replacement warranty) so this video really hits me where I live.
Just call up the Ice Man. He'll be your wingman, anytime.
My grandpa delivered Ice. Used to love to tell the story. A bit later in the 20s he drove an old Ice truck on a daily route in Wisconsin. Neat thing about the story is he started the route about 12 or 13 and delivered ice until he was 16. He said when he turned 16 he went in to town hall and asked for a drivers license. The Sheriff who was in charge of such matters told him this. Son I been watching you pull that ice truck in and outta town for years. Asked if he had enough money to pay? When my Grandpa said ya he gave him his license then and there. Always enjoyed that story! Grandpa went on to be Truck Driver all his life!
My folks had a cabin at Clear Lake, Ca. I remember the icebox, it was a "Brohn", a fine oak case and the interior was enameled steel. We would get our ice blocks from the Lakeshore Ice Co. In the early 50's, the Brohn gave way to a 1926 G. E. "Monitor top"! That fridge ran like a sewing machine...so quite and efficient. We sold the property in 1960...who knows, perhaps the G.E. is still a cool machine! A friend of mine has one he uses as a beer and soft drink cooler...nearing a century old!
My dad remembered when the ice man brought ice to his parents' house. The ice melted into a pan under the ice box, so the pan had to be emptied regularly.
MOSTLY THEY WERE OUTSIDE ON CORNERS, YOU'D GO CHOOSE THE ICE SIZE, AND CARRY IT AWAY
Back in the day nobody knew for sure if they belonged to the mailman, iceman or milkman. True story
Sooo, why not take that pan o water and put it out in the cold to refreeze...
I guess would only work in cold/freezing climates... hmmm...
@@SallyInCT The Pans sit lower, only to collect water drain off. Ice has to be on top
@@captainamericaamerica8090 Gotcha! Thanks!! 😊😘
I’m surprised Adam didn’t put that scene from the Frozen movie.
That would have been great
Probably copyright
_split_ _the_ _ice_ _apart_ _and_ _break_ _the_ _frozen_ _heart_
Dhava Adhi your right
I'm more glad than surprised
I just found this youtube channel and I'm instantly hooked, mostly because every time he introduces a sponsor, it's so perfectly incorporated that I can't help but squeal like Lucille when she finds out it's really Gene Parmesan.
Also, that Frederick guy totally proves Food Network's Geoffrey Zakarian is a time traveler.
Omg that’s a great way to describe it lmaooo
I grew up in Maine on a lake and my grandfather used to cut ice from the lake when he was a young man. In fact, that was one of the main sources of oncome for families in that area during winter. The only other industry that could compete was the logging industry, but these two go hand and hand. The lake would freeze to 3 or 4 feet thick during the winter
Growing up in New York City, on Bank St., we had an ice box. I still remember the iceman hauling a block of ice on his back up the stairs to our apartment and shaping it to fit in our icebox.
Adam when he sees an ice cube: So here's why I freeze my lake instead of using refrigerated ice
Growing up my family had an antique ice box that we used as a bookshelf it’s one of my favorite pieces of furniture that my family has I was always so fascinated with it
Adam , really enjoyed the History of how earlier generations did what ever they could to obtain ice to keep their food and drink cold enough to last several days. Your historical research was excellent and so was your Narration and an extra nice touch was interviewing relatives that were old enough to remember personal contacts and general information. Our pampered and spoiled generation takes most of the appliances, technology and our modern homes for granted as if they were always here. That includes our modern Refrigerators with Ice Makers and Air Conditioning.
When I was small I’m 70 now my dad had a delivery truck to deliver meat to stores . Well that truck had compartments for blocks of ice . Well used to go to the ice house in Phillips burg n j to buy man made ice picked it up with ice tongs and it was cut with just an ice pick . It amazed me how the workers cut those big blocks the size of a coffin to manageable blocks and they were pretty square when done
This is professional documentary quality. Incredibly well done, fascinating, and informative.
Before temperature was invented, cold things would stay cold infinitely
If you back far enough that’s probably true. Including your typo!
Nah, that was actually a glitch but everybody was doing videos on it that a new world update was quickly made and the glitch was quickly patch, but thats how people got really rich, unfortunately, nobody has been able to create the glitch in the current update, i guess that that update was the one and killed the temp glitch once and for all, there were updates that tried to patch it of course but people quickly found a way to recreate it, talking about world: the roleplay of course
if you don't test the temperature in ice, then it stays cold forever. I understand trump now.
@@_Myrhl lol very nice
people used to let women carry stuff near their chest, their cold hearts managed to kept cold almost everything for lots of time
Hey Adam I just want to say that when I first started watching your channel it was because of your no nonsense methodology and approach to cooking but now these Monday research videos are the reason why I truly appreciate you.
"You gotta start selling this stuff for more than a dollar a bag. We lost four more men on this expedition."
"If you know of a better way to get ice, I'd like to hear it." --Apu
What haven't The Simpson's done, lol
One of the best comments ever
My grandfather and his brothers cut ice in the winter, stored in sawdust from the sawmill, and delivered to Red Deer in the summer. This, along with hauling coal in the winter was how they supplemented the farm in central Alberta.
I live in Alberta, so hearing this piece of history is really fascinating :> thank you for sharing!
My grandfather's village in East Belarus had communal ice storage. The ice would be harvested from the river in winter and stored in cellars lined with bales of straw for better insulation. The ice would be used during the rest of the year. This system was still operating in 1960, even though they had electricity since 1940s, because fridges were rare and expensive.
My great grandfather (born 1896, lived in North Dakota) would talk about filling the icehouse with ice from the pond in the winter and digging coal from the hillside in the summer to heat and cook through the winter.
Hello from Iceland. When uncle Sam send his guys up here it was a blessing, the unemployment went to zero and we got a free airport.
Okay... This is heavily focused on keeping stuff cold with Ice. Want to hear about another thing that was used to preserve food in cold enviroment? CELLAR. Much more accessible, working good enough and not needing anything really. For example around the time people in NY you mentioned using Iceboxes people in central and eastern Europe were still using cellars. And in wine making and beer making? They often used cellars dug into a solid rock. If you ever were in a cave on a hot day you know the difference in temperature inside and outside can be quite extreme (as to being able to go in shorts and t-shirt outside and having to take on a hoodie and pants inside not to freeze).
People used cellars in the US too.. some still do. Alot of the US is much warmer that alot of Europe too.
@@chickenfishhybrid44 The cellars in US however are usually not meant for cooling things (notice I specificaly focused on the ones dug into rock because those were meant for cooling stuff especialy when it comes to wine, they are also noticably deeper) but as an aditional storage or protection from ground radiation (radon). So you are right. You will find houses with cellars in the US but their intended use differes (I am not talking about those).
And you are also right about the climate being hotter in certain parts of the US then again I adressed this with my comparison of the cellar to the cave (and this applies even to hotter climates). To further prove this there are whole underground cities in Turkey for example where you can visit and try this. The explanation is quite simple - heat from the sun doesnt reach there and rock can be a great heat isolant. Its the same reason why in desert it can be incredibly hot during the day and incredibly cold during the night. So hotter climate doesnt really matter in this case.
@@martinbudinsky8912 I'm talking about "root cellars" as they're often referred to used to keep produce you often grew yourself cool. I brought up the climate in the US being hotter because your specifically said Central and Eastern Europe. I know that others places used cellars as well, I understand that cellars under a home in the US aren't necessarily the same as what you mean. However obviously the concept is
My grandparents did use their cellar to keep stuff cold. It wasn't carved in stone or anything, in reality it was even above the ground, but had really thick walls that kept the temperature relatively stable.
My other grandparents however did not have a cellar. So, grandpa dug a hole alongside a stream in the forest, among a bunch of rocks, and bang. Refrigerator thingy that cooled beer and could make cold deserts. In the forest.
In Northern Europe you can still come across root cellars on the countryside. My parents built their house in the early 2000's and we have separate root cellar for storing potatoes, carrots, ligonberry jam and other sorts of jam and juices and it's always in use :D
That thing about the ice box is really funny. My 88 year old grandmother would always shout at us as kids to “close the ice box!”, if we had the refrigerator open too long. Anyone know how late in time ice boxes were used regularly in Boston? Maybe she just heard it from her own parents and grandparents and it carried over. Love this video btw
I had a grandmother on my mom's side who lived in western NY State and had an icebox refrigerator until the early 1970's. The house lost its electricity in a 1936 flood and was never reinstated as were poor. I remember it well when visiting her, the ice man coming around, you left a sign on a post of your porch to tell them you needed ice.
This was one of your best. Thank you for the most informative and wonderful storytelling, sir!
Small tidbit about Kingdom of Heaven: it's a widely popular movie in the Arab world because of the Syrian actor portraying Saladin (Ghassan Massoud) and the positive portrayal of the character.
Thus I have no choice but to tell Adam that Kingdom of Heaven is the perfect movie and no ill-talk of it is allowed!!
the positive portrayal of the character might be why he thinks it is a very stupid movie ,somepeople cant stand 1 movie in 10000 postively portraying muslims
@@klmaapp no it's a stupid movie because it's extremely historically inaccurate
@@klmaapp ??? Are you saying Adam is an Islamophobe? Because.....he didn't like Kingdom of Heaven? What a take.....
earthian The theatrical cut is a mess, but the director’s cut is a masterpiece despite some dated CGI and Orlando Bloom’s bland character.
@@klmaapp you're kind of an idiot huh?
"The desert actually gets really cold at night"
Me, in Arizona where its 80F at night: wtf
I guess it depends on the desert. Ridgecrest CA gets cold at night except in summer.
I've lived in Yuma but also lived at a higher elevation in the Chihuahuan desert close to the continental divide in New Mexico. Yes it can get very cold there
If you live in the Phoenix metro you're also dealing with the unnatural heat island effect of having 6 million people crammed into a relatively small areas filled with nothing but glass, concrete, brick and so on that absorb heat all day and then radiate heat all night sometimes never allowing the temperature to drop below even 90° on those 115° to 120° days.
@@josephbeckmann8106 this. Asphalt radiating..
@@josephbeckmann8106 I lived in Phoenix on base housing for quite some time and every winter there would be frost on the ground especially near the concrete.dont know if it's cause things are getting warmer or what but it was there when I was.
Still have a pair of *ice tongs* in my Grandmother's shed from the daze when she had ice delivered to her house - 9:28 As late as the 1980s, behind most small general stores you had these *compressors* in chicken wire cages behind the store chugging way, blowing hot air as you walked by. These were for the refrigerators in the store where you kept beer, soda, etc.
Definitely one of my favorite episodes -- great how you integrated your family history!
i could watch a two part three hour documentary on ice...not sure why this fascinates me so much
I know your comment is 8 months old but I know of a documentary that's pretty much exactly this. it's an oldish 2 hour PBS documentary th-cam.com/video/5LNd8XM5XYs/w-d-xo.html
@@Legapur9 Google Activated!!
Never thought I would ever hear of the the battle of Hattin in a Adam Ragusea video
The extended cut of kingdom of heaven is practically an entirely different movie with all the added stuff that does end up making the movie better
Although historical accuracy isn't always important
“You march to certain death.”
“All death is certain.”
My Dad was born in 1913, and in the early 50's when I was about 4 or 5, I remember dad bringing a block of ice home after work once or twice a week for out "icebox"... Then we got new Coldspot fridge.. I thought it was great and would try to see if the light in the "Coldspot" fridge did go out when the door closed!!
I really enjoy the personal connection weaved into the narrative. Greetings from Rome, Ga
What I remember vividly is in the early 60's we had a hurricane that killed power for almost 2 weeks. Only 1 location in Baton Rouge had power and ice and we would make trips every day or so to buy 20 pound blocks of ice.
Good good brief history of the ice trade. We still have an ice house currently operating in my Southern city.
PS - Historical inaccuracies notwithstanding, Kingdom of Heaven is a quite a good flick, if, as others have responded here, you watch the Directors Cut, which restores the emotional logic and fills numerous plot holes. Seriously. In my opinion. I wonder what Adam's criteria are for a good movie? Anyway, I like his mini-histories.
13:10 it’s like a real life Romeo & Juliet. Only difference being the poison they picked was a wine zealot.
In Sundsvall, Sweden, they use plowed snow to cool the hospital in the summer. They dump the snow down in a special pit with pipes, and when the pit is filled to the brim as a moutain. They then cover it in sawdust and that keeps the snow covered from the sun and keeps it cold for almost the entire summer.
This is awesome I actually know a lot about this subject. I grew up in a town called Gouldsboro in Pennsylvania in the Pocono’s area. We had a state park we could go swimming and fishing at and on the other side of the lake was railroad tracks. The tracks were barely used anymore and there were all these buildings on the tracks. Come to find out this lake was dug out and made bigger with a dam so they could cut and harvest huge ice blocks in the winter load them directly onto the train and send them to NY City, Philadelphia etc for people to use in there Ice Box.
Wow I wrote my comment before I even watched this video and you actually got right into what they did in my home town that’s cool.
I love the new history side to the channel, your history background really shows and it is very entertaining to watch these videos in between cooking videos !
also, kingdom of heaven is my guilty pleasure, fight me
Way to go Adam! Thank you for sharing us these historical infos that we normallycome across and usually ignore. We learn while having fun watching your videos😃
In my country we use claypot containers called "labu sayong" to make cold water as we don't have icy mountains
What country is that?
@@CallanElliott Malaysia
We do same in Philippines, Ice water inside a Clay Jar taste good too
I was in Egypt; they do the same. Cooled by evaporation.
I remember the iceman visiting my grandparents house. He was a giant of a man and he had a leather cape over one shoulder. He would hold the block of ice on that leather cape with ice tongs and then with one sweeping motion he would put the block of ice in the “icebox” in the kitchen. The iceman was a giant.
My great-grandmother still had an icebox in her kitchen when I was a little kid, and my grandfather had a thriving business selling home furnaces and refrigerators that could run on LP gas. He also sold the gas, so people who were off the grid could get refrigerators and heat their homes. He made a nice living that way. BTW, he also hacked his delivery trucks to run on LP gas. Lol.
This is awesome! I work at a grocery store and yesterday I witnessed a delivery from the ice delivery person!
What a crazy turn of events