Over the next few years, manufacturers experimented with various versions of an electric refrigerator for the household. It offered more careful temperature regulation, but the market wasn't ready for electric refrigeration quite yet it was neither reliable nor affordable enough. It was a small cooling device that could be used in any icebox to replace the ice itself. One device that showed some initial promise was the DOMELRE, or "domestic electric refrigerator," released in 1914. There were a variety of experiments and attempts to come up with an electric refrigeration system that worked well for the home. With the advent of electric refrigerators, leftovers could be kept longer at more consistent temperatures-meaning they'd be more reliably safe, too. Iceboxes also presented a new way to save prepared foods-or leftovers-that previously might not have lasted beyond one meal. Other techniques, like salting, drying, and canning, erased any appearance of freshness and required more time to prepare. By this point, cold had become the clear choice among food preservation methods, proving less labor-intensive and more effective at preventing spoilage. A large block of ice was stored inside to keep these early refrigerators chilly. The ice was also measured to ensure that it was thick enough-anything less than eight inches would melt too quickly during transportation to far-flung locations.īy the end of the 1800s, many American households stored their perishable food in an insulated "icebox" that was usually made of wood and lined with tin or zinc. Before ice could be cut, snow had to be cleared from the surface. The process of ice harvesting looked somewhat similar to crop harvesting, with horses pulling plow-like ice cutters across frozen lakes and ponds. Frederic Tudor, who eventually earned the nickname "Ice King," had ambitions to establish a national supply chain, distributing ice from New England to the rest of the country. The natural ice harvesting industry in America began to take off in the early 1800s. Not far from this museum in Alexandria, Virginia, an ice well from around 1793 has recently been restored.
The octagon-shaped pit, built in the 1780s, has a stone lining to reduce heat loss, and it would have contained ice brought from a nearby body of water. A more elaborate icehouse was found at the former site of the President's House in Philadelphia. There may have been a hut built over the pit to trap cold air and help preserve perishable items like meat, packed in ice and straw for insulation. A seven-foot pit found at Jamestown is believed to be modeled after an English-style ice pit.
Taylor Foundation Object Project, opening in July.Įarly cold storage systems in America were located not in kitchens, but underground. And the history of storing food by keeping it chilled goes hand in hand with the evolution of what and how Americans eat-a concept we'll explore in the Patrick F. Though we're accustomed to today's sleek, stainless steel models, Americans experimented with preserving food with cold well before this appliance became a standard fixture in most households. So how did this all come to be? We save leftovers because we have a convenient device for keeping them cold, and perhaps we can't even imagine life without it: the refrigerator. Though they seem like a routine aspect of daily life, leftovers haven't always been as easy to save as popping Tupperware in the fridge. Some of us even plan on leftovers, cooking up a batch of something on Sunday to last us the whole week. Leftovers: Whether you love them or hate them, you've probably eaten them. This flexibility of when and what we eat has become an integral part of the American diet. Thanks to electric refrigeration, we're able to store more food, longer. If you haven't done your spring cleaning yet, think about starting with the fridge.
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