Keeping food fresh in the pre-refrigerator era: A look back at the yesteryears
Are you someone who love your mini trips to the refrigerator at night? Do you sneak out midnight snacks such as ice cream, chocolates or leftover pizzas? Now, try to imagine a world without refrigerator. Tough, isn’t it? How else would you store your desserts, or keep your vegetables fresh? Well, you will be surprised to know that this kitchen appliance is only a 20th century convenience that was invented in 1913, thanks to the American innovator Fred W. Wolf. Okay, so that bring us to an important question: How people kept their food fresh before this machine was around? Turns out, there were various other effective food storage techniques people used to resort to in the pre-refrigerator era. Here’s a sneak peek into those techniques.
Yakhchal in ancient times
If you turn back the clock to 400 B.C. Persia, you would notice people storing food using an advanced technique. What they did was construct dome-shaped structures called ‘Yakhchal’ or ice-pits that were made out of mud bricks. They were insulated by 60 feet high walls with a thickness of 6 feet, and below was a large underground space with a capacity of 5000 square metres. This ensured that ice remained frozen and food fresh all through the year. As most of you know, Persia or modern-day Iran, is known for its desert climate, meaning it has low humidity and Yakhchal made full use of this just the way our modern-day air conditioners function.
Salting, smoking & pickling during the Middle Ages
As most of you might be aware of, salt is a great preservative. Maybe that’s why people in the Middle Ages preserved meat by salting and then smoking it. Similarly, fruits and vegetables were also first salted and then pickled (process of using a salt and water solution, often known as brine). As for grains, they were dried in order to help them last longer. People often used cellars and caves to store food, besides carving holes in the ground or making nooks in wooden walls for storage. In fact, the deeper the cave, the cooler was it. These methods not only kept food fresh overnight, but also helped during droughts and famines.
Ice-houses and ice-boxes of the 19th century
These were invented in the 19th century and the inspiration was perhaps Yakhchal. It turns out that ice-houses were community cooling houses used by an entire village to keep food fresh. These insulated, above-the-ground buildings were large in size, that covered an underground pit full of ice. In fact, it was around the same time when ice delivery emerged as a business, distributing blocks of ice to fill such pits.
Towards the end of the 19th century, ice-boxes (popularly called Esky) were also introduced. These were essentially made of wood and looked like modern-day crates that held heavy amounts of ice to keep food fresh. At times, the wood was further insulated with tin or zinc. Moreover, households that were well-to-do often spent in building their own ice-chests that looked similar to today’s fridge cavity. There were three insulated boxes, with the topmost box containing ice, the middle box reserved for the food and the bottom box catching the melting ice.