The History of Refrigeration | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW

welcome to stuff you should know a. production of iHeart. Radio hey and welcome to the podcast I'm. Josh there's Chuck and Jerry chili Wily. Roland is here doing the recording. wearing a little red beanie looking all. cute and um this is stuff you should. know you can see Jerry in my mind's eye. oh.

like I don't see Jerry she has a setting. on her uh on her uh setup where it's. like show camera only to. Josh and not Chuck and she's wearing a. little red beanie and looks like a mini. penguin yeah but she has uh you can't. smell her she has a button to allow me. to smell her even though she's in LA and. you know what it smells like miso yep. but she may have gotten that miso from. the fridge.

oh okay all right I see what you're. doing nice work Chuck that was a good. oldfashioned stuff you should know segue. and in full stuff you should know. fashion I stepped all over it so it. didn't actually work that well no that's. all right um yes we are talking about. Refrigeration which is why you brought. that up and again nice work um we've. this this is one of those um I guess. topics that has popped up Myriad ways in. Myriad episodes so I mean literally.

30,000 ways in 30,000. episodes and um we're this is one of. those stuff you should know things where. we're just going to bring it all. together and finally talk about the main. topic yeah uh big thanks to Livia for. her help with this and this was a me. idea uh because I think after our. history of Dentistry I I just sort of. got turned on by the idea of the history. of like certain just commonplace. practices and things these days and I. maybe got something out of the fridge. one day and I was like oh man.

refrigerators they really changed the. game did you say that to yourself out. loud or were you just thinking this I. think I did and Emily said what the heck. are you talking about and of course they. did but I was kind of curious like I bet. it's changed the game in more ways than. I think and that was sort of Livia's. charge and uh here we go with that. because I think it did change in more. ways than I thought it might have oh I. was going to ask that I had a follow-up. question and then you just answered it. yes it was satisfying the result was for. me so the I think initially you were.

thinking like refrigerators like home. Refrigeration um maybe like Warehouse. Refrigeration fairly recent. Refrigeration but Olivia like you said. who helps us with this one no no and. wagged her finger and so this stuff goes. way back Beyond this chalk and you said. how how did you get in my kitchen right. yeah so we're going to start early way. way before mechanical. Refrigeration uh there was still. Refrigeration which just means keeping. something cold yeah um a refrigerator is.

a mechanical version of that but in. olden times one might even say ancient. times uh people were still trying to. keep things cold like since we figured. out that cold things lasted longer. people have been trying to keep things. cold in various ways yeah cold keeps the. flies away yeah exactly FES don't like. cold so um one of the things that people. have long loved to do is cool down their. drinks right mhm it's just something you. take for granted these days but that's. one of the first uses people put cold.

storage or Refrigeration to which was to. store ice so that they could chop it off. with a ancient ice pick probably made. out of a bone or Tusk or something like. that and put it in their drinks and um. as we'll see like that that that's just. long been a desire of people but. whenever someone has access to ice and. places you normally can't get ice it's. one of the first things they do to it. and it's also um almost always a sign of.

wealth to start off for sure yeah I find. it interesting that and um you know I've. traveled my fair share around Europe and. I was I was shocked early on in my 20s. when a lot of the drinks came without. ice yeah and they said you know that's. sort of the European way because in. Italy and ancient Greece and ancient. Rome the the people that had the dough. they were putting ice in those drinks. and that's because iced drinks are. better yeah across the board to me they.

are I know everyone has their own thing. some people have. sensitivities uh teethwise and things. like that so I get that but I've always. been a super icy drink guy I love him. cold cold cold and even if you're like a. um into cocktails like you might not. want ice in your drink but I'll bet you. used ice to chill that. drink hey unless you're just like a. straight up warm room temperature neat. whiskey which is your prerogative of.

course sure of course uh you need to be. cooling those drinks down really well. like a cool drink isn't great you got to. have it cold I remember there's one of. the lamest Mixology trends that somebody. tried to start and there was it was. around long enough for there to be some. press on it and it just went away. inevitably it was room temperature. cocktails. oh yeah like why would you do that you. might as well make sure that every. single one of them has to have celery. bitters in it too yeah and and I know. we're getting get people that say like I.

don't like things that cold so even if. they don't have teeth sensitivity so. again my teth uh people like what they. like but uh I'm an ice since I was a kid. a tall glass of the iciest ice water is. the most refreshing thing I can put in. my mouth huh I just realize I drink room. temperature water I have a glass of it. right here so I guess I can't just stand. with you 100% there Chuck I'm sorry well. actually the studio is the only place. where I don't drink iced water because. it makes noise so I have a a you know.

out of the refrigerator cooled so it's. still pretty cold sure supposedly your. body metabolizes room temperature water. much more easily but supposedly you also. burn more calories warming water up in. your body so all right you're going to. be torn well I believe you cuz you said. it one other thing about ice and drinks. um I think the best martinis are the. ones that have you get them so cold that. they have like a little Shard of like. Arctic Ice on the top I love that but.

supposedly that's not the way but I love. that too I love it too it's so good oh H. and we're getting so sidetracked over. these drinks we're not even through like. the first paragraph here but the martini. the ultimate Martini is when they do. that and then they bring you the tiny. you know little half pitcher right. sitting in a little tiny bowl of ice yes. I love that too and then also when they. leave $5,000 in cash with you as well. for no reason other than ordering the.

$5,000. Martini all right so people are cooling. their drinks with ice in ancient times. and places uh around the 7th Century uh. of course the Chinese are always. discovering the biggest and best ways to. do things way back in the day uh they. found out that really you hedged. yourself right then and I was like oh be. careful right uh salt peter uh which is. used in making gunpowder was found to. absorb heat when dissolved in water so.

they would know maybe one of the first. artificial cooling methods was to make a. little salt peter bath and you would. just sit a jar of whatever you want to. keep cool in that cooler water pretty. cool get it yep I um that's going to. happen many times and I'll never do it. on purpose so I just apologize in in. advance yeah one of the other things. that people figured out pretty quickly. is that when you have a liquid. evaporating usually water as it. evaporates um turns from liquid to gas.

that phase change is what they call it. the eggh heads call it a phase change um. it requires energy and typically it gets. that energy to change phase from heat my. God the heat um and it usually just. pulls it from the surrounding air which. means that when a liquid turns into a. gas the air around it is cooler because. it pulls that heat right out of the air. to use it for the phase change and if. you have some way of moving that cooler.

water from around whatever um vessel of. of um or sorry the cooler air from. around the The Vessel of water that's. evaporating you have yourself a. primitive air conditioning system that. sometimes called a swamp cooler I saw. yeah I've heard that before uh this is. something that has been done in India. for centuries and centuries and you know. it's not refrigerator cold but if you're. looking to keep something cool and. something a little bit fresher that's.

not a bad way to do it for sure no for. sure and um it has to be this is the. downside it has to be uh a dry hot place. yeah if it's muggy out then it's not. going to have much of an effect but I. also saw like a swamp ironically yeah I. thought that was weird too um I also saw. one of the other really basic uses for. it is to dampen a towel and hang it in. front of a breezy window and as that. water evaporates in the towels it dries. off is what lay people call it um the.

breeze pushes that cooler air into your. house and I realized that I was having. trouble like envisioning this stuff or. why anybody would go to the trouble and. I was like oh yeah before the kind of AC. and Refrigeration that we're used to you. had to go to all sorts of trouble it's. just so easy to take for granted these. days but to before this and in other. places where they don't have AC people. would hang damp towels in front of a. breezy window to get cooler that's how.

desperate they were to cool down yeah I. imagine knocking something down a few. degrees makes a big difference you know. in the preac days you know for sure uh. bearing things in the ground is also a. good way to keep things cool uh you know. like 3 to 5 feet down uh you're going to. find pretty consistent temperatures. depending on where you are uh if you're. in the north it can be 45 50° down there. m uh more like 70 in the South and you. know that's Fahrenheit and of course. anyone who's ever spent any time uh.

camping or hiking knows uh as I did when. I was a kid my dad would build a little. like a cordoned off area with stacked. rocks in a very cold mountain river to. put like jugs of milk and stuff like. that in when we were camping as a family. yeah there's things called Spring houses. or spring boxes depending on how big the. structure is but typically if you have a. stream or a spring running through your. homestead which from what I've read. recently is like like Point number one.

that you want to make sure your. homestead has as a source of fresh water. one of the cool things you could do with. that is to build an enclosure around it. but first within the enclosure what you. want to build is like um kind of like a. widened area for the stream to flow into. and then it kind of fills up and then it. exits the other side of this widened. area so you narrow the channel of the. spring or the stream um line it with. rocks line this box with rocks basically. and and it it stays about half full year.

round of this nice cool mountain spring. or Mountain stream water and you just. keep your butter in there and Crocs and. stuff so it's just like doing it in a. stream but you're basically making it a. little easier to store your things in. there you could put more stuff in it. than you would if you just threw it in. the Stream like a total hay seed like. even even the mountain of mountain. people are like you don't you didn't go. to the trouble of building it a spring.

house if for somebody who just throws it. into the stream themselves yeah so far. I'm keeping track now you have name. checked Eggheads lay people and hay. seeds and Mountain fo yeah and Mountain. F that's what we do. here so but in the 17th century in. Europe they had official ice houses um. and they were you know you'd bring down. ice from where you could get ice like. literal just ice from the wild like in. Scandinavia uh and they were using it to.

preserve food obviously um also for um. like the the medical community would use. it for different things and also. chilling those drinks still uh but you. know you would you could use ice to. treat burns and things like that to. bring down a fever um you know making. things cooler was a big benefit to a. doctor yeah also remember in our feta. cold star of fever short stuff we talked. about how there was like. a doctors viewed heat and cold as a. duality of Health so yeah if somebody.

was sick with one of the hot sicknesses. you would probably give them a cold. drink and that was considered as good as. medicine is today yeah or of course any. you know uh sprains and you know muscle. PS things like that heat and ice can be. used in various ways sure the rice. method you know. sure so one other thing I want to. mention real quick is we're talking. about people like technologies that are. like thousands of years old um there was. something called a yak Chaw. that um Persians created that to.

listeners may or may not sound familiar. depending on when we release the short. stuff on it yeah so it's either just out. or coming out soon it's getting its own. uh short stuff because it was just kind. of too much there it was pretty cool. yeah but it was like a ancient Persian. ice making machine that dates back at. least to 400 BCE which is really. impressive but yeah we'll get way more. in depth on those in in whatever short. stuff we do but the the point is that. people have been doing this for a really.

long time and they' figured out some. really ingenious technologies that. harness natural processes to cool and as. we kind of progress through the. technology you'll see that we're. basically doing the same thing just a. little more whizbang much more. efficiently it delivers much cooler air. or water or whatever we're cooling um. but it's still basically the same. premise as what we were doing thousands. of years ago to keep things cool yeah. totally I think it's super cool um if.

you want to talk about like real ice and. there's this really extensive in depth. long New Yorker thing which you know. most New Yorker things are uh about. Frederick tutor the Ice King uh who's. around in the 19th century and he was. the guy that was like Hey we got all. this ice up in New England like our. Lakes are literally Frozen and why don't. we try and make some money by shipping. this ice out uh he had you know he tried. to get investors and they they were like.

I don't know it seems like that stuff is. going to melt right if you put it on a. ship and try and send it to Cuba uh and. he said oh watch me and he put some on a. ship and sent some toward Cuba uh and it. melted and he was like oh man they were. totally right but he kept at it and kept. at it and uh you know they used to keep. use things like straw to help keep the. ice a little more insulated and he said. sawdust actually works a whole lot. better and he other people got in on the.

game and there was like American ice. being shipped all over the world in the. 19th century which is and making it. there which is kind of hard to believe. yes and I have been racking my brain. what episode we first introduced the Ice. King in I cannot for the life of me. remember what it was Igloo I don't no I. don't think so I really don't remember. what it was but he popped up again later. in our episode on thorough because one.

of the places where he was cutting ice. from was Walden Lake and thorough noted. the Ice King cutting ice in or wal Pond. sorry Mayers um yeah that while he was. writing his book Walden I think he. appears in. Walden uh two things you just name. checked Mayers that's another one and. Henry David thoro the original hippie. that's true uh but the one thing I did. want to mention and that's a nice little. segue was uh uh just to plug a little. Instagram post I made recently I I was.

cleaning out my closet and I found a. bunch of old school work from elementary. school and uh while this part was from. high school I did a a satire an extra. credit satire on thorough uh about. someone who went to live deliberately in. the woods and uh you know the big joke. at the end is they made it like 30. minutes or something um it wasn't the. best comedy work you know for a ninth. grader it was okay sure but uh people. should go check it out cuz I did a bunch. of screenshots of um various projects a.

lot of space travel stuff and book. reports but uh one big one was on. Ancient egyp uh and I literally in the. thing was like hi my name is Chuck. Bryant and I'm going to be your guide. through ancient Egypt and at the end it. was like uh I hope you enjoyed your tour. and i' been once again signing off I've. been your guide and people are like oh. my God you were doing stuff you should. know as a fifth grader that's awesome. man it's really pretty cute but uh you. can go to uh Chuck the podcaster. Instagram to to check that stuff out. people got a real kick out of it for.

sure I'll go check it out too you would. like it I and it's not like I avoid your. Instagram I just don't go on Instagram. much okay I know that buddy I know. you're telling everyone else that but I. know that's not your jam yeah so I. talked about how like the technology is. really just kind of improved on Ancient. technology the uses for this stuff too. have really kind of been relatively the. same we haven't had a lot of stuff that. we wanted ice for aside from cooling our. drinks which is really honestly Olivia. turned up a mention of a the king of.

takoa um or takoa I saw different. spellings in what's now Syria um and he. used it to ice his drinks uh almost. 4,000 years ago so I mean people have. been doing that for a really long time. another one is to store perishable food. like you said keeps the flies away right. um yeah and in doing these things as. we've gotten better and better at it um. it started to have like really. Monumental Mass massive sweeping changes.

on Humanity um and here in America one. of the first changes it had uh we will. talk about right after. [Music]. this should. [Music]. know lately I've been learning some. stuff about insomnia or Al you.

Min how about the one on borderline. disorder better yet birth order heard. that one before but it was so nice I. learned it. twice everybody listen. up oh it's Charles and. Joshua it's stop it's. stop so Chuck I was talking about how um.

Refrigeration had massive sweeping. changes as we got better at it and in. America one of the first things it did. was it allowed people to expand their. diet some Because unless you were in. like a Southern state or something like. that you did not have access to a lot of. different kinds of food year round like. during like spring and summer maybe even. into fall a little bit you would have. things like like Dairy and poultry and. and meat and then as winter. yes and as winter started to set in you.

had pickle cabbage pickle um neighbor. who died that winter like pickled. everything canning didn't even come. around I didn't know this until the 19th. century I thought it was really really. old so like you really did not so. actually you didn't have pickled. anything now that I think about it you. had like salted stuff cured stuff um and. a lot of it was grains too right stuff. you could store fairly easily um and.

then when we started learning how to. preserve food with refrigeration and got. better and better at it like people. their diets just changed radically like. apparently in the northern states by the. time spring came you were so. malnourished from a lack of niin vitamin. B3 that you normally get from like. poultry and fish and meat that they had. a name for it spring sickness today we. call it pelaga but it's a type of like. severe malnutrition that people would. just annually get because they had that.

limited access to different foods and. then once we started being able to store. and then more importantly ship um items. by refrigerating it then things really. change that spring sickness went away. and I'm also the first person in history. to say the word. refrigerating uh also before people ride. in they they were definitely pickling. things before they were uh canning so uh. you could still pickle things Okay cool.

so yes you could pickle your neighbor. then yeah they had jars and stuff like. that well what's the deal then I mean. they just hadn't figured out how to use. heat baths and and that kind of thing. what for canning yeah I don't know maybe. how to seal something properly would be. my guess but uh although I don't know. maybe like Wax ceiling maybe canning. should be an. episode all right and we can figure that. out yeah let's figure it out I can regil. everyone with more tail of being drugged.

to the canery as a child is right I. forgot about that which is actually true. it makes me sound hundred years old but. that's actually true uh so yeah when. artificial cold came on the scene that. really really really changed the game uh. there was a physician and chemist uh. from the University of. glasow uh in the 18th century 1748 named. William Cullen who it looks like did the. first experiment um on artificial. Cooling and kind of demonstrating how. that was possible. and he like you said it was just sort of.

a version of what they had done in. ancient times with those uh water in the. clay jars and exploiting that phase. change from liquid to gas uh using the. thermal energy but he used instead of. water uh diethyl diethyl diethyl ether. and he would pump it out of uh of a. container um and it would come to a boil. and that heat would pull all the you. know heat from the surrounding area just. like it did back in old days it was just.

sort of different um a different medium. and that would cool things down yeah. this Chuck was one of those episodes. where I went near mad trying to. understand like the physics of the whole. thing or even like the mechanical. engineering aspects of this stuff and. it's got to be because my dad was a. mechanical engineer by profession yeah. so like I've got that little bug that I. can't ignore and I looked all over for. how William cen's thing worked and. apparently no one knows because the same.

like four or five sentences are. basically copy and pasted everywhere on. the internet oh that's frustrating so we. do know that in the before even 1750 he. was the first person to demonstrate. artificial Refrigeration it didn't go. anywhere but he showed that this was. entirely possible and that it was pretty. clever to use something like a. artificial refrigerant rather than just. say water although water is an excellent. refrigerant in a lot of different. applications. yeah for sure uh a guy an American this.

time named Jacob Perkins came along. about 50ish years later in. 1834 and he's credited uh basically for. developing the first working what we. would call. refrigerator uh in his machine and you. know again it's just not too different. from how they do it today they just do. it a lot better right uh but he used a. vapor compression cycle uh again um it. it's all about the the um the thermal. loss of that phase change but in this.

case they're just exploiting it you know. because if you move the pressure back. and forth between the two it keeps a. constant cool right yeah so so it's just. nuts if you see like a diagram and how. it's explained and how a vapor. compression refrigerator works which is. almost certainly the kind of. refrigerator you have in your home. there's really just like four components. to it and they're really doing some. basic stuff to this but it's more a. question of like why like why would you. put something into low pressure and heat.

it up for the next step to be to like. depressurize it and cool it down and. then you turn it into liquid up here. it's just it doesn't make sense it's. almost just nuts like somebody just went. crazy with a diagram but apparently. that's how it works and it's all I think. it's like you said it's just taking. advantage of the different properties of. lower pressure liquid or higher pressure. gas like they can cool and heat and. they're they I guess it puts off so much. coolness or so much heat that it it can.

be used to refrigerate and then it. passes through this other thing like I. think a condenser and that gives off the. waste heat that's what's under your. fridge um and then like the evaporator. cools everything down and I finally got. it. Chuck okay so I've been looking at it. wrong the whole way the refrigerator. doesn't pump cold into your fridge right. the the actual mechanical refrigerant. process what it does is it sucks heat.

out of your. refrigerator and once I finally. understood that I was like I I got it. finally I got it because this cooler um. refrigerant goes through a coil and I. thought like it was emitting cold and. that that's how it cooled down no it's. drawing any heat from there kind of. tricking the heat into joining the coil. and leaving the fridge box cooler which. is what that refrigerant wanted all the. time it thinks that the heat was a. sucker for falling for it but that's.

exactly what it does every time and now. the inside your refrigerator is way. colder amazing I think it's kind of. amazing too because it's the opposite of. what I always thought was going on yeah. that's super cool I love that uh they've. used uh various liquids over the years. um ammonia is one they used for a while. methyl chloride for a while uh all of. these things were toxic though so until. they figured out a safer way which you. know they would soon enough uh people. would actually die in the 1920s there.

were cases where uh methyl chloride. leaks happened actually killed people uh. and then they said you know what maybe. we should come up with a synthetic. substance that does uh basically the. same thing so they came up with dorof. florom methane AKA Freon and until the. 1990s Freon was the go-to and then we. said hey that's not so great either. because of our environment in the ozone. layer uh and so let's develop even newer. safer chemicals to keep things cool yeah. which uh hydrocarbons are good for the.

ozone layer but they're actually. horrible as greenhouse gases um there's. a rating of just how much of an effect. uh like a chemical has on um warming the. atmosphere and they use carbon dioxide. CO2 as a one that's like the Baseline. because we know how much it warms the. atmosphere over a 100 years so it has a. global warming potential or gwp of one. carbon dioxide. Chlor.

hydrocarbons have a global warming. potential of. 14,800 wow that's a lot more than CO2 if. you really stop and think about it and. these are the refrigerants we're still. using these are the Alternatives that we. developed and started using in the 90s. so it's like we go from the frying pan. Into the Fire whenever we try to do. something environmental it feels like. yeah that's probably true uh to me this. is where this episode gets super. interesting and this is kind of what I.

was really after when it came to uh the. assignment which is uh when things. started moving around uh cooling systems. started getting better and better uh. people were developing this stuff and at. the same time railroads were growing and. growing and expanding and expanding and. all of a sudden people in the midwest. Farmers could you know they were like. hey I I want to be able to ship my stuff. and sell it to the east coast so the the. whole food scene was changing because of. this um in the 1850s they started and.

this to me is just like super ingenious. um they started keeping railroad cars. cool by using ice so they would uh they. were called reefers re e f er a reefer. was a refrigerated you know rail car and. they had these big hatches in the roof. they would load just these huge huge. blocks of Ice uh and then fans that were. driven by you know powered by the the. Turning of the axle on the train uh or. on the train car rather and that just.

you know it just blew on them like a a. breeze past a cool towel in your window. and all of a sudden you had refrigerated. train cars they were lined in like flax. and sawdust like we mentioned sometimes. dirt sometimes cow hair and even though. people were a little bit at first like. uh I don't know about this um the meat. packing industry really got on board. because they said we've been shipping. live cows across country for people to. take care of when they get there when we. can butcher everything in one place and.

ship out this what they call dead meat. it's disgusting but that's what they. called it right that's what um sixth. grade bullies call you too when they. tell you to meet them in the playground. at. three did meet but that changed that. changed absolutely everything this is. when meat became like a staple of the. American diet um we talked a little bit. about Chicago being the epicenter of. this and that what did Americans eat. before the FDA came along or something. like that yeah that's right. um but all of a sudden meat was much.

easier much cheaper to ship and they. could ship it further and further so. they started supplying the cities with. with meat and people started to be able. to afford it and that just that was. another huge change not just for humans. but for cows too because apparently the. cow population in the United States more. than doubled in 30 years after we. figured out how to refrigerate um meat. or ship refrigerated meat yeah. yeah that's incredible that's a lot of.

dead cows yeah it's a lot of dead cows. um it it completely changed Chicago uh. as a city and it completely changed the. way we were eating as a nation all of a. sudden um you had refrigerated cars also. shipping produce it wasn't just about. the cows and the beef even though it was. a big part of it right um but all of a. sudden you could be like hey I'm growing. this fruit in Florida and have you have. you ever had um not just an orange in. your stocking for Christmas you ever had. a big bag of oranges sitting around your.

house well we're happy to provide that. for you and uh us fruit I think was one. of the first companies um to get. involved in like sending their good. stuff all over the place and you know as. a result obviously the prices really. really dropped there was a article in. the New York sun in 1894 that talked. about the price of pairs went from 40. cents to two for a nickel in just a. couple of decades thanks to refrigerated. cars it's even more impressive uh when. you adjust for inflation so a single. pair was.

$11 in the. 1870s and they were uh two for A180 in. the 1890s thanks to. Refrigeration did you ever get an orange. in the bottom of your Christmas stocking. because I never understood why until I. started researching this no you never. did oh we always didn't I was always. like why is there an orange in the. bottom of this stocking making it seem. like there's way more stuff in here than. there actually is. I feel like I would remember that our.

stockings were uh couple of little fun. things like a little top or some Silly. Putty but usually just like socks and. stuff like that sure I'm guessing that. the reason I did and you didn't is. because I was raised in the north the. Midwest maybe I'll bet that's why and so. it was like a like a Midwestern. tradition because we didn't have access. to oranges and you could eat an orange. year round basically you lucky. duck uh trains eventually uh shipping. wise gave way to trucks. and they said hey now we got these.

trucks that uh we can you know. refrigerate as well and so we're not um. you know things were built around. Industries entire industry separate. industries were built near Rail Yards. because rail shipping was the only only. game you know for a long time so and I. think it was in the in that uh what did. we eat episode when we talked about. Chicago like the whole meat packing area. was around the Rail Yards cuz they could. you know they wanted to have it super. close so now all of a sudden you could. say hey. stuff is you know it's really much.

cheaper to raise cattle or grow. vegetables way out in the boonies you. can get cheaper labor cheaper land so. now we can do that just throw it on a. refrigerated truck to get it across. country y so Chuck little by little as. these like Innovations in shipping stuff. meat produce things that just could not. make it from you know uh California to. oh I don't know let's say. Denver okay without rotting or something. as we got better and better at this. something called the um cold chain.

started to emerge and evolve and that. was basically how we move perishable. items from one part of the country to. another thanks to this refrigerated. stuff and it was super primitive and. separate um I think the I don't know if. you said or not but the very first. private rail cars were these um Meat. Packers um refrigerated cars they just. did this on their own as like a a great. business move but these things became so. invaluable and people became so hooked. on having stuff available year round.

that they normally wouldn't that it just. became an institution like a part of any. growing developing um countries um. infrastructure there was something. called the cold chain yeah absolutely uh. there was an engineer early on who um. who did not realize his dream but he was. sort of the first Visionary in the mid. 19th century his name was uh Charles. what. tier o nailed it uh he was the guy. that's kind of envisioned this and said. hey the cold chain is a thing that we.

could make a reality and then we can. sort of reorganize rationally on how we. grow food and how we ship food and uh it. was his idea he apparently died in. extreme poverty um because he never. realized the dream to its fullest but he. he tried he actually got a British uh. steamer ship and outfitted it with a. refrigerator uh even named it uh lee Le. frer frer frer Rafi yeah like okay like.

um like fantastic basically but. fantastic refrigerator is basically what. it means yeah that sounds like a MAG but. refrigerator fantastic refrigerator. concern uh and this was in 1877 and he. was bringing beef across the ocean uh. from uh Uruguay to Paris and when they. got there he was like everyone's gonna. love this and the French were like huh. you think I'm eating meat that's been.

dead for a month yeah uh you're crazy. and we're going to pass a bunch of laws. that ban this kind of thing for the next. 20 years and tell your Screech I'm not. crazy shut up take it. back yeah exactly um so like you said he. died penniless as you like to say um but. his his legacy lived on eventually. people said like okay we can get used to. this but it took some it took some. selling for sure um. one of the other major things that. helped establish the cold chain was not.

just shipping but it had to like sit for. a little while when it got to where it's. going like it's not like the train. stopped at every every house for anyone. who wanted eggs like it went to one. Central destination and it unloaded its. contents and um so as a result Cold. Storage had to develop um you remember. Rocky he uh helped Train by punching. huge sides of beef that would uh that. was part of the cold chain he he worked.

in at least I guess that's where he. worked was a cold storage. place uh yeah yeah like a meatpacker. storage facility I think um by the way. second Rocky reference in here that was. another very subtle one we'll see if. listeners can pick that out it already. happened yeah yeah little Easter egg I. didn't pick it out I want to. know all right I'm going to tell you off. air ready I'll tell you right now.

oh. okay thank you for telling me it sounded. like you were acting just then then you. kind of were but I really did just tell. Josh um but yes let's leave that as an. Easter egg uh anyway yeah cold. warehouses started becoming a thing uh. again that sawdust insulation uh. provided um a lot of the you know um. insulation I guess uh these were in the. 1860s and uh you know it wasn't like. your refrigerator cold but they were.

storing like fruit and produce so it. basically it was like hey you you don't. get too warm and spoil is what they were. trying to you know accomplish there yeah. it didn't have to be frozen necessarily. no no no uh but by 1904 this was a. legitimate thing there were more than. 600 uh huge storage you know cold. storage facilities I think one 102. million cubic feet um and you know. mainly based around cities but they were. holding everything for from you know. produce to uh namely eggs cuz people.

wanted their eggs year round and back. then before they started breeding. chickens to to lay eggs year round they. were basically laying in the spring and. people wanted those eggs in the winter. yeah and they really did breed them. Chuck through selective breeding. programs uh there's something called the. red jungle fowl which is a type of. chicken wild. chicken lays about 10 to 15 eggs per. year and like you said normally in the. spring maybe in the early summer that's. just not enough if you want eggs year. round so the bre seeds that we developed. like the leg horns which is the top egg.

layer the champ they lay about. 350 eggs per year year. round that's a lot but before that yeah. you could just hang on to eggs I almost. said you could just sit on eggs for a. while thanks to Cold Storage that's. right uh but you know we said the French. were kind of grossed out by this uh it. wasn't just the French a lot of people. had a hard time kind of coming around to. this idea of eating things that had been. around for a while and uh false rumors.

spread that you know that stuff could. make you sick it could cause cancer uh. so in 1911 as a as a PR rebuttal I guess. the poultry butter and egg Association. had a cold storage banquet at the hotel. Sherman in Chicago where they served an. entire meal of foods that had been. preserved through Refrigeration uh to a. lot of folks including the mayor and the. health commissioner as sort of like hey. here's where we are now you don't need. to be grossed out and people said okay I. may not be grossed out but um I'm also.

like I have to get used to the idea of. not buying the eggs from the farmer down. the street or getting my milk from down. the street or the produce from the. farmer down the street and so it it took. a while for people to come around to. just getting food away from a source. they really sort of knew personally. usted yeah and that was one of the roles. of the FDA in the Pure Food and Drug Act. of 1906 was to basically say okay we get. why you don't trust some of these people. cuz some of them are actual total scals. some of the people selling food. Apparently one technique was to if you.

had a bunch of um meat that was about to. spoil you just froze it and shipped it. and the person wouldn't be able to tell. until they thawed the meat out and tried. to sell it and you just ripped them off. um that was a big one or if you had a. cold storage facility um if you're. storing something for months you need to. keep it cold for months there can't be. like a week where everything breaks down. and you just hang on to that stuff and. sell it anyway after things get back. online um and this was the kind of thing. that like people in the US were having.

to worry about so thanks to the Pure. Food and Drug Act of 1906 and then later. on actual laws that gave it teeth that. kind of helped set the stage for people. to finally relax and be like okay I can. deal with frozen food because it was. like the the GMOs of its day like people. were just like it'll give you cancer if. you eat frozen food like it was like. people did not trust food that had been. frozen. that's right uh we should take our. second break here at minute 42 and we're.

going to come back finally with home. Refrigeration right after. [Music]. this lately I've been learning some. stuff about. insomnia or alumia yeah um how about the. one on borderline disorder better yet.

bir order heard that one before but it. was so nice I learned it. twice everybody listen. up oh it's Charles and. Joshua it's. [Music]. St all right so ice boxes had been a. thing uh since you know at least the. 19th century uh they start to become.

more and more common um and this is you. know a big wooden uh sort of cabinet in. your kitchen um usually wood uh and it. was lined with something like a tin. lining or zinc maybe and the icean would. come around deliver a big block of Ice. uh to your house and that's how things. were kept cool in the ice box and if you. are a gen xer or older your uh. grandparents may have even said the word. ice box my grandmother certainly did uh. because she lived to be 100 and was. around in when they called them ice when.

they were ice boxes right not just call. them yeah there's also that whole. excellent subgenre of um desserts that. are ice box like ice box. cakes yeah yeah lemon ice box pie uh but. finally in 1914 we get our first. mechanical refrigerator in the house the. domestic electric refrigerator or the do. m e l r e Bridge uh made its debut and. this was still not a um fully integrated. refrigerator it was a device that you.

got to put in your ice box uh to keep. things cool and to keep that ice for. melting yeah um so yeah it didn't take. off they weren't super reliable they. were pretty expensive um but not too. long later a decade or so later in 1927. GE introduced its refrigerator it's. nicknamed the monitor top because. there's a big round turret on top of the. refrigerator that gives it a very. distinctive look it looks like a robot. fashioned by like a sixth grader um but.

the monitor refers to the Civil War. Ironclad USS monitor um and that's just. that was the nickname I was looking all. over for what general electric called it. and they seem to have just called it. refrigerator yeah it is kind of cool. looking if you want to look up a photo I. mean it looks as. described uh leftovers uh and this was. something I was really curious about um. that that had been a thing uh the it was. 1878 I think when that uh term was.

coined um but uh leftovers back then. meant like you got to eat this stuff the. next day because people didn't want. their food to go bad people didn't waste. stuff like they do now and just throw. stuff away if they didn't eat it so. dinner went into the breakfast or the. lunch or it went into a big pot the next. day that was on the stove and you just. had these big sort of stews of uh. leftover things uh now that you had the. mechanical electric refrigerator um all. of a sudden you could preserve stuff and. you could serve you didn't have to.

transform something you could like warm. up and serve the same meal that you ate. a few days ago and that was a a pretty. radical thing uh at the time oh yeah for. sure um again though people were kind of. like I I don't know about this um I I. was about to say fortunately but um. related to that uh scarcity during World. War II and World War I but also the. Great Depression uh basically said hey. everybody you can't just like be. throwing food away like We need to be. very Thrifty with food and that really.

kind of gave leftovers a big boost um. also because the government came in and. created propaganda campaigns to kind of. um persuade people to start eating. leftovers more because again thanks to. your new handy GE refrigerator you can. do that kind of thing that's right it's. pretty great um you know the cold chain. is what what really changed the game uh. early on but it also changed like not. just availability but like literally. creating new kinds of foods like.

inventing new Foods um iceberg lettuce. is so named uh because it could hold up. to being shipped on ice and it has the. same taste as an. iceberg hey man I'll go to bad for. Iceberg really. really yeah I think it's unfairly. labeled as as junk uh and like iceberg. in with some arugula and a little Roma. and some leafy greens that went a little. Iceberg cuz it's so crunchy sure uh and. you don't get that kind of texture from.

uh I mean maybe a little bit but it's. the crunchiest lettuce to me so I I. think it gets a very snobby sort of um. people look down on it for for bad. reasons is my is my take but I like a. little Iceberg tell them what John. Waters called Iceberg Lettuce I thought. that was great uh the polyester of. lettuce uh yeah but I was also raised a. you know lower middle class kid who grew. up eating iceberg lettuce and so okay I. was too it has a fond place in my heart.

for that reason I understand I I hated. salads so maybe that's why I hate. Iceberg less CU that's all that's all we. got was Iceberg as well and like French. dressing or something like that or Ranch. and that was it and you ate it and you. liked it and you shut up about it I. would party on an old school 80s Iceberg. salad so hard for real like even when. you were a kid you would eat that uh. yeah I mean that's the only kind of you. know I mean it's probably not even a. vegetable but I I considered it a.

vegetable I didn't like a lot of. vegetables but I would eat a salad so. that's funny I I hated salad so much I. would refuse to be served anything. except for some iceberg lettuce and some. carrots and I wouldn't even eat that no. salad dressing nothing like whenever uh. everyone else was finished if I was. still eating my salad I had to stay at. the table and finish it and so at that. time I would just start slowly putting. it bite by bite under the credenza. behind me but then I I was shortsighted. enough I didn't go back and clean it out. so every few months like the credenza.

would get moved and there'd be a pile of. like desicated iceberg lettuce and. carrots uh the other thing I like to use. Iceberg for now is like um if you're. making something in a lettuce cup. Iceberg works really well okay oh yeah. yeah yeah for sure like chicken lar or. you know something like that totally. I'll agree with you on that uh so Frozen. Foods obviously wasn't a thing for a. long long time but finally in the 1950s. uh they said hey you know what we can. cool things we can freeze things we can. freeze meals and we can freeze orange. juice uh and I know we've already talked.

about TV dinners and concentrated uh. frozen concentrate orange juice but. those were two really big game changers. only um made possible for advances in. refrigeration and freezing and chipping. yeah and while we're on it I believe in. our um uh like food Origins uh episode I. don't remember what it was but we talked. about the TV dinner um and we totally. credited Jerry Thomas a Salesman for. Swanson is coming up with the idea and.

since then it's become much clearer that. Jerry Thomas might have had almost. nothing to do with this and that the. real hero was a 21-year-old. bacteriologist named Betty Cronin who. was the one who not only she might not. have come up with the idea I think she. said one of the Swanson sons did but she. was the one who figured out how to make. it work and to make these meals that are. different foods entirely that all cook. at the same time and come out the way. that they're supposed to that was all.

her that's right Betty Cronin uh. unsurprisingly uh not forgotten but not. doesn't get nearly the accolades she. should have gotten no she does now. though yeah way to correct the record. friend uh so yeah TV dinners I mean I. would go listen to that episode it was. pretty great but it definitely uh you. know came along as TV was coming along. and it was a big deal and even though I. mean there are still TV din sort of like. that but um if you go in the frozen food.

I mean I don't get any of this stuff but. if you go to the frozen food section. there I mean you can get almost any kind. of meal Frozen these days yeah even. iceberg. [Laughter]. lettuce oh yeah that's not what that. means anymore oh no I'm not gonna let. someone. ruin Hawking up a lugie for everybody. that's that's one of life's great. Pleasures sure uh there's other thing I. wanted to mention so the cold chain is. now so diverse and there's so many.

different versions of it all working. together it's now called the cold. web and uh Livia gives a great example. of what we can do now we can catch a. fish in Norway send it off to China for. processing and then send it from China. to the United States for eating wow all. within a half an hour that's. amazing well maybe longer than that but. still it is still. amazing anything else we should do we. should do an episode on. gullibility nice idea you got anything.

else I got nothing else I got 10 12 more. minutes worth of material you mind just. sitting there no let's do it uh since. Chuck said let's do it I think it's time. for listener. [Music]. mail uh this is about the pink house uh. hey guys I can't believe there is. finally a subject I can share some. information about uh every year I would. visit my cousins who live about 20. minutes away from Plum Island and. heading to the beach was a yearly. activity as we all grew and we had our.

own families the yearly gathering at. Plum Island got bigger and better and. passing the pink house has always been. the tell that you're just a few minutes. away from the beach uh I grew up hearing. the same story you guys shared about the. being a spite house and believed it to. be true as it truly sits alone on the. salt marsh it's pretty weird looking uh. just last month though being a new home. owner on the island I was sent a town. newsletter in which a tribute to the. Pink House gave a different history I've. attached the art article for you to read. uh while it wasn't quite built with. spite there seems to have been some.

spite in the story our family loves the. show and even flew to Boston to take our. two adult girls who live in Boston to. see you live uh thanks to you we are. walking local experts on The Biosphere 2. and that is from Amy Sandy who is. wonderful yeah thanks a lot Amy uh. number one thank you for coming to see. our show and number two congratulations. on your new house yeah for sure. and number three thank you for sending. us a delightful email and if you want to.

be like Amy you can send us an email too. to stuff podcast at iheartradio.com. [Music]. stuff you should know is a production of. iHeart radio for more podcasts my heart. radio visit the iHeart Radio app Apple. podcasts or wherever you listen to your. favorite shows. [Music].