Preserving food has not always been easy. Centuries ago, people gathered ice from streams and ponds and did their best to store it year-round in icehouses and cellars, so they had a ready supply to keep their food cold. Even with ice, people were often limited to eating locally grown foods that had to be purchased fresh and used daily, notes the Greatest Engineering Achievements of the 20th Century Web site.
The Egyptians, Chinese and Indians were some of the early people to use ice in food preservation. In 1626, Sir Francis Bacon was also testing the idea that cold could be used to preserve meat; his chilly experiment caused him to develop pneumonia, from which he died on Easter Day, April 9, 1626.
Even Peter Mark Roget, compiler of Roget’s Thesaurus, studied refrigeration, suggesting a design for a “frigidarium.”