![Before fridges, most people didn't keep food cold at all. They changed the food. How ancient humans kept food from rotting [5:58]](https://external-preview.redd.it/No8Entw1fAoWf-8fCDDozzvDwR3B7ExO8w6mI_plrZM.jpeg?width=320&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=defe6e08c9693cfb3581fee54896cf8ce20ac7ae)
Before fridges, most people didn't keep food cold at all. They changed the food. How ancient humans kept food from rotting [5:58]
Full disclosure, this is my channel. The core idea of the episode: for almost all of history, food started dying the moment you got it, and the usual answer wasn't cold. It was drying, smoking, salting and fermenting. Ham, bacon, salt cod, cheese, pickles, sauerkraut and wine are basically the leftovers of a system built to beat rot.
Cold existed but belonged to kings. Zimri-Lim of Mari bragged about an icehouse almost 4,000 years ago, mostly for cooling drinks, and Persian yakhchals kept winter ice through the desert summer. Then in 1806 Frederic Tudor shipped 130 tons of New England pond ice to Martinique, lost money, kept going, and eventually made cold cheap.
The part I found most surprising: as fridges spread in the 20th century and people ate less salt-preserved food, stomach cancer rates fell in country after country. Happy to hear corrections from people who know the food history side better.