SC - Ice

[Elysant at aol.com]

- -Poster: <Elysant at aol.com>
 
 << One quick question:  Does anyone on the list have any references to how 
  medieval cooks kept things cold, since the invention of the refrigerator 
was 
  not to come about for many, many, many years?   >>

Aside from ice houses and ice keeping things cold , , I know up until I was a 
teen, when we got our first refrigerator, we used a marble shelf in a pantry 
to keep things like dairy products and meats cool enough not to "go off".  

The coldness of the marble keeps the food cool quite effectively.  Milk 
bottles were kept in jugs of cold water on the marble shelf, with the water 
changed from time to time.  I don't know how old this "marble" practice is... 

Elysant