Hi All,
Following on from Clive and Sue's lovely Christmas day post and on to talk of ice caves, little ice ages, etc. I'm sure it wasn't me who posted anything about ice caves. However, I think we must have talked about it during the Tarragona Summit when Mrs Simon and Nick had their own geographer's fringe event. The issue was that in Guyana they use ice for refrigeration as the electricity supply is totally useless. The point was about 'travellers', i.e. goofy western backpackers, making a big deal about not having ice with their drinks whereas in fact the ice is made by condensing water out of the humid air, so is about as pure as you can get. If you don't have a bowl of ice served up with your beer it starts to froth up like dry ice in a Hammer horror movie! (does anyone out there (Dave, Teeps) remember Fenella Fielding 'smoking' in a Carry-on film? Oooooh!)
Back to ice caves (a good thing too I hear you cry); I'm not sure that the concept of refrigeration, as in food conservation as opposed to very short term storage, existed before the nineteenth century at least as nobody would have understood the behaviour of bacteria. As usual I'm completely wooly on this but I think that Lister had something to say on the subject, by my encyclopaedia only refers to his development of the microscope - over to you experts! But otherwise food, especially fish, was salted or dried, the latter requiring cold, dry mountain environments then as now, hence the 'jamon' from Teruel (coldest place this side of Siberia!) is still the best!
I know that there are loads of ice house in the LOG, many of which were/are follies and some are available as holiday rentals through the Landmark Trust. On the subject of climate change and the 'little' ice age; many Pyrenean 'bordas' i.e. 'corrals for use in summer were actual 12/12 villages until about the end of the XIv century, even having productive vineyards, etc. Our area, the Conca de Tremp, developed a considerable economy from about the XVI century onwards producing wine for the higher mountain communities after their indigenous production literally dried up. I'm not into global warmig denial, don't get me wrong, but it just goes to show that there's nothing new . . .
Regds
Simon