Eliza Anderson, Deseret Information
For those who’re an American consuming at a restaurant in Europe and also you order a glass of water, you might be shocked — and disenchanted — to obtain a glass of lukewarm water, or, even worse, a room temperature bottle of water.
A glass of ice water, although customary in america, is seen as unusual and pointless elsewhere.
A couple of years in the past, the HuffPost ran an article titled “It’s Bizarre That American Eating places Serve Ice Water In Winter,” wherein the writer known as not simply ingesting ice water within the winter but additionally ingesting ice water typically a “weird” follow.
Nevertheless, People’ “weird” choice for ice water is nothing new.
‘The nationwide devotion to ice-water’
Mark Twain as soon as wrote, “I believe that there's however a single specialty with us, just one factor that may be known as by the large identify ‘American.’ That's the nationwide devotion to ice-water.”
Depart it to the American writer to find out what makes us American. And that's, apparently, our love of icy-cold water — water so chilly it is going to give any uninitiated European a mind freeze.
Many have tried to elucidate this tradition hole, with Henry Jeffreys in The Guardian writing ice simply isn’t important in Britain as a result of it doesn’t expertise the “scorching summers” that america does. In the meantime, Lisa Bramen, in Smithsonian journal, speculated that it comes right down to Europeans seeing ice as “taking on helpful actual property within the glass,” whereas People have a “extra is extra” mentality.
‘The Ice King’
All of that is, after all, simply hypothesis. However America’s love of ice cubes may have an historic foundation.
As Reid Mitenbuler writes in Epicurious, the nationwide “obsession” with ice cubes will be defined by the success of Boston native Frederic “The Ice King” Tudor in commodifying ice within the early nineteenth century.
“The Ice King” received his title — and millionaire standing — by delivery ice from the frozen lakes of New England to hotter areas such because the Caribbean, New Orleans and even India. Tudor pushed for folks to relax their drinks with ice, and, because the story goes, would even give away free iced drinks to hook prospects earlier than charging them.
“A person who has drank his drinks chilly on the identical expense for one week can by no means be offered with them heat once more,” Tudor famously stated.
Like Tudor predicted, folks received hooked and an ice craze took over the U.S., with 100,000 tons of ice being shipped per yr by 1850, and by the 1860s, two-thirds of houses in Boston and New York had been getting ice delivered every day.
With the invention of the ice maker and the appearance of synthetic ice, ice turned extra available — and much more standard.
An American staple
Now, ice is an American staple: Virtually all drinks are served with it, and even most fridges now include an ice maker.
So why did the ice craze not hit Europe prefer it did america?
It’s laborious to say why precisely. Maybe folks view it as diluting their drink (although this logic doesn’t apply to water).
Or perhaps they didn’t have their very own “Ice King” liable for popularizing ice cubes.
Regardless of the cause, and no matter temperature you such as you drink, subsequent time you get a glass stuffed with ice cubes, you'll be able to thank Frederic “The Ice King” Tudor.