One Amish woman (let's call her Bea) told me she stores lettuce from her garden all winter long in her spring house, which doubles as her ice house in the winter. She wraps each lettuce head in newspaper, puts them down inside a large Styrofoam cooler with a tight lid, and stores the cooler in the ice house. When she's ready to use it, she unwraps a head of lettuce. A few outer leaves have to be removed from the head. The remaining lettuce is just as fresh as it was when she put it up! Bea says the ice in her spring house lasts all summer long and into the fall. Pretty cool!
Friday, February 7, 2014
Putting Up Ice
Have you ever thought about how Old Order Amish refrigerate their food? They don't have electricity to plug in a refrigerator or freezer. In the winter, they "put up ice." They harvest ice from their ponds to put into an insulated basement room. Some use sawdust for insulation. They fill the room up with blocks of ice, then fill in the gaps between the walls and the blocks of ice with sawdust. Often you will find a refrigerator in another basement room--it's not plugged into electricity--with blocks of ice inside to cool milk and meats. When the ice melts in the fridge, they go chop another chunk and put it in the fridge.
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