How we keep food cold while the house stays warm.
Only when the power goes off and food spoils do we truly appreciate how
much we rely on refrigerators and freezers. In Refrigeration Nation,
Jonathan Rees explores the innovative methods and gadgets that Americans
have invented to keep perishable food cold--from cutting river and lake
ice and shipping it to consumers for use in their iceboxes to the
development of electrically powered equipment that ushered in a new age
of convenience and health.
As much a history of successful business practices as a history of
technology, this book illustrates how refrigeration has changed the
everyday lives of Americans and why it remains so important today.
Beginning with the natural ice industry in 1806, Rees considers a
variety of factors that drove the industry, including the point and
product of consumption, issues of transportation, and technological
advances. Rees also shows that how we obtain and preserve perishable
food is related to our changing relationship with the natural world.