Buckle UP listeners because a monster has been unleashed. Molly presents her treatise on these cold, hardened drips as well as her top tip for enjoying a hospital stay. The IceKing Cometh as we debate the physics of keg stands and are molded and crushed into assorted shards because we're as predictable as a broken ice dispenser.
“The good ice” Helen Rosner’s NYer piece
Molly's Now but Wow! - Rostam Batmanglij's Half-Light
Molly 0:00
Music. I'm Matthew, and I'm Molly,
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:05
and this is spilled milk, the show where we cook something delicious, eat it all, and you can't have any today.
Molly 0:10
We are talking about ice.
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:12
And I It looks like I've unleashed a monster. That's
Molly 0:15
right, I did the research for this episode, and I basically have, I just
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:21
have you read War and Peace, because compared to the ice research that Molly did, that's a no, very
Molly 0:26
short, yeah, buckle up everybody. You're gonna learn a lot about ice so this, I
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:32
think this is an episode that I thought we did in the past, and I think we both concluded that we had done it. But I think what I was thinking of was that the sporkful arch rival podcast did an ice cubes episode. Do
Molly 0:43
you think the spork, wait, you just confused an episode we did with an episode the spork fold, I think so. Like, as though you could mistake Our two podcasts for being the same, they're kind of the same. Dan Pashman is so insulted right now.
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:55
Yeah, I know shots fired. We're we're renewing our beef with the spork. Full, okay, okay,
Molly 1:01
okay, well, so, hey, let's talk about ice. And I also want to say, Wow, the ice disambiguation page on Wikipedia is overwhelming. I mean, there are so many different uses of the word ice, like, whether, in like, you know, in this the world of pop music, computer technology, government agencies. I mean, every computer technology, yeah, there's a bunch of stuff where, like acronyms or ice or whatever, in
Matthew Amster-Burton 1:30
in William Gibson's novel Neuromancer, they use ice to represent, like a, like a firewall, or like a, like a security system. Well. And then
Molly 1:38
there's, of course, like the drug slang? Yeah, so, but we would just want to clarify. We're talking today about, like, refrigeration stuff. Remember
Matthew Amster-Burton 1:47
wherever in the movie splash? When? When he has to explain ice to her, and he says it's what happens to water when it gets cold? And she says, where I where I come from, it never gets cold. No, I
Molly 1:59
don't remember that part. I only remember the little old lady who wore the bra on the outside of her that's the only part I remember. Oh and you get, like, a tiny glimpse of Daryl Hannah's boob. Oh yeah, tiniest,
Matthew Amster-Burton 2:12
oh yeah. No, I don't remember. I didn't notice. Oh
Molly 2:14
okay, yeah, okay. So buckle up, everybody. Okay, here we go. Ice time. It's ice time. Matthew, let's begin on memory lane. All
Matthew Amster-Burton 2:23
right, so I like, I think both of us, it turned into kind of ice maker Memory Lane, because that's like when you think about ice like as a kid, except when you're skating on it, which is, which is, which
Molly 2:35
is not what we're talking about. Or, I know when you're slipping on it outside, also not what we're talking about,
Matthew Amster-Burton 2:41
kind of the same as skating. I had a friend who had an ice maker in their freezer. It was like the kind that happens inside the freezer, and like, drops into a plastic bucket tray, as I remember the shape of the ice. It sort of had prongs, like, kind of like fake vampire teeth, as opposed to real vampire teeth. Wait,
Molly 3:03
wait, hold on. The
Matthew Amster-Burton 3:04
ice itself had like, prongs. This is this doesn't exist. Well, I don't know if it exists anymore, but I never it was weirdly shaped ice. It had like pointy stuff coming out of it. Do you
Molly 3:16
think that those were just like drips that hardened? Maybe
Matthew Amster-Burton 3:19
I don't, but it seemed like they all had, like, the same shape. It didn't occur to me to Google this
Molly 3:24
time. Yeah, yeah. I want to, I want to get to the Bucha. This was probably,
Matthew Amster-Burton 3:28
like, early ice machine technology that hasn't been made since the 80s, and the ice tasted like
Molly 3:33
garbage. Okay, well, that is the case for a lot of us, yeah. Like, I
Matthew Amster-Burton 3:38
mean, our ice doesn't taste very good now, but this was worse when
Molly 3:41
I was growing up in the house on Westchester. You may remember that one from our corporate retreat to Oklahoma City. We had a fridge with, you know, side by side freezer and fridge doors and it had an ice dispenser. But as is the rule with all freezer door ice dispensers everywhere. It broke all the time. Well, yeah, one of the settings had to be broke at all times, broken at all times. And it also had to dispense ice all over the floor constantly. So, um, has,
Matthew Amster-Burton 4:14
do we know, like, you don't have an ice ice maker now, do you? No, yeah, no, I've never owned one. I have no idea whether this technology, like, got good at some point, or if it still blows. I
Molly 4:25
think it still blows because I've stayed in a couple Airbnbs that had, you know, freezer door ice dispensers like this, and they were all terrible, and now
Matthew Amster-Burton 4:34
they still, like, they still we're gonna talk about pallet ice later, right? Ice makers, of course. Okay, but
Molly 4:39
hold on, hold on. Hold on we're gonna get there. So several hours. That's right, the ice maker of my childhood. It dispensed those like very cloudy, crescent shaped ice cubes, which we're gonna talk more about in a minute, because that is sort of like the baseline ice maker shape from, you know, when home ice. Makers were originally made. I think
Matthew Amster-Burton 5:01
it's the vampire teeth shape is the baseline shape. That may be a false memory.
Molly 5:07
But then when my parents bought a new house, and, like, you know, did a huge remodel situation when I was in middle school, they put in like an ice maker that was like standalone. It went under the counter, like a drawer. My parents, like bankrupted themselves. For this house, it was specifically for the ice maker. For the ice maker. No, the house was beautiful, but the ice maker was a bit frivolous. It had, you know, a little door you pull down and there was, like a little slot on the door where a scoop fit onto it, so you never lost the scoop inside the ice machine. And that one made really lovely little almost like, sort of slightly flattened cubes, almost like, do you remember hubba bubba gum absolutely that had, like, squishy stuff inside? Yeah. It was like, I don't, what do you call that shape? It's, it's like, what
Matthew Amster-Burton 5:59
did you have a kind of rounded corners, or, like, No, it was, like,
Molly 6:03
it was like, a cube.
Matthew Amster-Burton 6:04
I think you call it a rectangular solid, but there's probably a more evocative term, but
Molly 6:10
it, I guess maybe it made ice NAT shape. Oh, yeah, that sounds and I thought that was really fancy, yeah.
Matthew Amster-Burton 6:16
So you would just, like, pull open any, anytime you were feeling a little blue, you would just go, pull up, pull up in a drawer of ice. That's right, put your face in. That's exactly
Molly 6:24
right, yeah. So that was pretty cool, and I'm just here to say that, yeah, as an adult, I've never had a fridge that made ice in any way, no, I mean a freezer that made ice in any way, like a plastic tray, yeah?
Matthew Amster-Burton 6:38
Okay, I put the next thing on the agenda. And this is really important, if you know the right answer, I don't want to know, what is the Iceman Cometh? Is it a play about an unfrozen caveman? And if it's not, why not?
Molly 6:49
I was actually, I was thinking about this when I saw it on the agenda, and I was wondering if it was about, you know, an ice delivery man in the old days. That
Matthew Amster-Burton 6:56
was my second guess, that it's like an ice delivery man who fucks your wife, right?
Molly 7:03
Or who's, like, who's who's got, like, a thirst for blood, and so he's he's coming, everybody, hide your children.
Matthew Amster-Burton 7:11
I have a feeling any of the things we just said is way better than the actual play, which, which, I know is a classic. But like, you know, we've moved on, and now we only like cool stuff, like unfrozen. That's Brandon Frazier, right? Yeah,
Molly 7:26
that's right. That's
Matthew Amster-Burton 7:28
what he's known for. Okay? In a totally consensual way, I
Molly 7:31
want to be clear, yes. Okay, so people have really strong feelings about ice. In case you didn't know this, it seems that, like in the last five years or so, the ice that people have really been talking about is pellet ice, yep, pellet ice, which Helen Rosner called the good ice, yeah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 7:49
I honestly don't know if I like it or not. Oh, I like it, yeah? Like, I get the idea, like, I feel like I want to, like kind of a clankier ice. You
Molly 7:59
want a clankier ice? Oh, no. I enjoy pellet ice. I associate it with Sonic. Oh, sure, yeah, the Sonics of my fast moving hedgehog. That's exactly right. I know I was thinking the signaling molecule in like, human development, yeah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 8:16
one of those. You know what? I know what you're talking about. Okay, we did it to two weeks in a row, like we revealed that we might be smart.
Molly 8:24
It just keeps sneaking out. So what I was going to say is I associate pellet ice with styrofoam cups back when we did know Styrofoam cups were like, ruining I
Matthew Amster-Burton 8:33
know, yeah, yeah, I do. That is the thing. Like, in general, I don't miss Styrofoam. I always thought it was kind of squeaky and gross, yeah. But yeah, there's something about, like, you know, a Styrofoam cup of ice that had, like, sort of a thick rim around the top, and it
Molly 8:46
had to be pellet ice. Yeah, yes, yes. Pellet ice may be the only reason to enjoy being in a hospital. I mean, otherwise, there's no reason you could enjoy being in a hospital. Okay, so I want to talk a little way,
Matthew Amster-Burton 9:00
the way you said that your tone of voice sounded like there is another reason, and we should all know what you're talking about. I love
Molly 9:06
being in hospital.
Matthew Amster-Burton 9:09
Does the Iceman Cometh?
Molly 9:10
Yes, okay, okay, so I just want to talk a little bit about what pellet ice please, because it's interesting to me, because we're in contrast, we're going to talk about ice makers in like, an hour, and
Matthew Amster-Burton 9:24
we already talked about ice and then
Molly 9:28
you're going to hear about how different usual home ice makers are from pellet ice get ready. So this is from Helen rosner's New Yorker piece about pellet ice, and we'll link to it in the show notes. Okay, I quote. Pellet ice is cylindrical with smooth sides and rough ends, as if each piece had been snapped off of a long dowel of ice. Unlike most ice, which is either carved from a larger block or frozen in a mold, it is made from paper, thin flakes of ice that are pressed into a solid mass a method. Familiar to anyone who's packed soft, fresh snow into a dense, compact snowball and then pushed through round holes punched in a metal sheet, creating a fragile cylinder that breaks off into pieces. Here's where pellet ice differs from crushed ice, with which it is often erroneously conflated. Oh, man, this is so interesting. Wait a minute, crushed ice may be what I'm thinking of from Sonic.
Matthew Amster-Burton 10:24
I feel like, okay, we're gonna get in big trouble. Is wrong, but, but I think Sonic does have pellet ice all right. And I think, Okay,
Molly 10:33
well anyway, hold on, I'm gonna keep reading. Yeah, okay, there's more. Helen Rosner, here, here's where pellet ice differs from crushed ice, with which it is often erroneously conflated the compression of the nuggets we're talking here about pellet ice creates flaky layers, which, as in a well laminated pastry, render the ice pellets lightweight and airy, with crevices and tiny caves into which your drink can penetrate and a yielding texture perfect for chewing. The ice is small, each piece only about a centimeter long and narrower in diameter. So it fills a glass more efficiently than lumbering cubes or half moons, and somehow, in a quirk of thermodynamics, it allegedly melts more slowly. Unlike standard ice, it doesn't Clink. Instead, it makes a soothing, gently percussive shuffling sound like someone shaking and a fuche cabasa in the apartment next door. Yeah? Oh, bless you. Helen Rosner, yes,
Matthew Amster-Burton 11:28
I learned a lot about pallet ice from that. I can tell you, Sonic does sell pallet ice, also known as nugget ice, Pebble ice, tubelet, Gem ice, or pearl Have you ever heard it called tublet? No,
Molly 11:39
that's adorable. Not
Matthew Amster-Burton 11:41
only was that, like, an incredible description, but it explains, like, why it's not my favorite. Because, like, I I want my ice to be, like, crunchy that I can kind of knock it around in my mouth if I want to. And I like, and I like the clanking in the it's not even clanking. So
Molly 11:57
you don't, you don't like the, like, the compression of the flaky layers that they
Matthew Amster-Burton 12:02
don't want, like snow, like, I don't hate it, like, and I recognize that it cools because it has so much surface area, like, it cools the drink really fast and really cold, which I do like, but I think I like more of a more of a classic quiescently frozen ice. I think I may have used that term correctly. I don't know, even know what it means. I think, quite easily frozen. He's like, frozen in a mold. Okay,
Molly 12:23
okay, so wait, could you look up if hospitals usually have crushed ice or pellet ice? Because I'm feeling now like, like hospitals have crushed ice. Do
Matthew Amster-Burton 12:31
hospitals? Do hospital rooms have cameras? What are you fuckers doing out there? Um, do hospitals have pellet ice? Well, Google wants to know my location. Hospitals often have pellet ice, also known as nugget ice, chewable ice, or Sonic ice. It's soft and it's easy to consume Safer for Patients who may have difficulties chewing or swallowing or who are recovering from surgery or have a sore throat. Oh, this, this
Molly 13:00
makes a lot of sense. So none of these lumbering cubes. So okay, so you have stated a strong preference for queer cube, cube ice, we'll call it. And do you have a preferred cube shape and size?
Matthew Amster-Burton 13:12
That's a good question. I kind of like, sort of, uh, assorted, like, shards go on, like,
Molly 13:22
like, when you Okay, so you and I both have
Matthew Amster-Burton 13:25
ice cube trays, yeah, which I, which, you know, I have, like, the most basic ice cube trays. More basic, fine, like, I, I do like, like, I like, a clear ice which I'm sure we'll talk about, like, a perfect small cube, like a, like, three quarter inch cube. I love those. I don't encounter them. No, I
Molly 13:41
don't encounter those often. Either they're like, a little bit fancy, yeah, no, those
Matthew Amster-Burton 13:45
are good. But yeah, that that's kind of my favorite. Probably. How
Molly 13:48
do you feel about crescents or the half moons?
Matthew Amster-Burton 13:51
They're fine. Like, I feel like those are kind of big.
Molly 13:54
They are kind of big. Like, I
Matthew Amster-Burton 13:56
want, I want to be able, yeah, exactly. That's what I was thinking about with the crescents. But like, but probably could, like, pack one into each cheek, like, and be like a little ice chipmunk.
Molly 14:06
You could, you could, what about ice luges? What's your preferred shape of ice luge? Like,
Matthew Amster-Burton 14:11
in the Olympics, what's an ice luge?
Molly 14:14
Oh, my God, clearly, you and I are from different worlds. No, we need to have a party or something. I need to have a party. I've never been at a party that had an ice luge, but people do this. They like, make this weird, like, you know, ice sculpture tunnel thing, and you, you put your mouth at one end of it, and somebody pours vodka from the other end. Oh, okay,
Matthew Amster-Burton 14:34
so, like, a drinking game thing. No, like, like, the other day, I revealed to my my brother, that I didn't know what a keg stand was, and he made fun of me.
Molly 14:44
I mean, you can guess. I don't. I've never seen one happen. Yeah, I
Matthew Amster-Burton 14:47
guessed, and I got it, like, three quarters, right? But, but you do? You do go upside down, like, and someone holds the part I couldn't figure out was, like, how? How do you drink while you're upside down? It's that people hold your feet. But. People
Molly 15:00
hold your feet, but like, what is the deal with it? I mean, like, Wouldn't it be really hard to drink upside down? Well, I
Matthew Amster-Burton 15:05
mean, you got, like, peristalsis, I know, but like, rushing to your head and like, you there'd be a lot of dribbling, I think, like, the fact that it's hard is the point probably go into your nasal passages. Like, like, what happened with something, something on a recent episode that went into my nasal passages that was very unpleasant. Oh, what was that? I don't know. It was a whole week ago. So how can we perform? By the way, since we did that marmalade episode, Watson and I have been like going ham on that fancy Sicilian marmulade. It's so good marmalade. What was the there was the there was some so I can't even really picture this. It's like, it's like, A, is it like a tube? No, it's like, I've never seen one cross section.
Molly 15:55
I think it's just like a party stunt, if you've got, if you're rich. Brian, yeah, you've got too much money. That's a throwback to our last episode.
Matthew Amster-Burton 16:04
The thing I'd be concerned about is, like, what if a little guy comes down the ice layers right into my mouth?
Molly 16:10
You mean, like, or whatever? Yes. I mean, do you want them to come feet first or head first? Oh, wow. Which is scary. Really
Matthew Amster-Burton 16:19
personal question. You're talking about that when the Iceman comes, right? I guess I'm gonna say your head first.
Molly 16:30
Okay, so, so you want a skeleton to come down a little but skeleton,
Matthew Amster-Burton 16:39
like, We're all friends here, like, I want a little skeleton to go down at ice luge head first in my mouth, and then when I crunch them bones. Oh,
Molly 16:49
you like it when they clack against your teeth. I know. Okay, okay, okay, hang on. So, hold on. So how do you make, okay? I'm okay. Okay. How do you make ice at home now, like you as a grown up,
Matthew Amster-Burton 17:05
first I have to find a glacier.
Molly 17:08
Oh, you do it the old fashioned way. I
Matthew Amster-Burton 17:11
do it the old fashioned way. Well, it's a good thing we live near some glaciers. That's true. I have, like, if you imagine, like a target, plastic ice cube tray. That's what we have. I do feel like this technology has improved slightly, really, for our lifetimes. Because when I was a kid, it seemed like the plastic was harder and like it was harder to, like, twist it to get the ice. Can I see your your ice cube? Yeah, possibly it's just because I was a child and I wasn't as strong as I have now, you're really
Molly 17:41
ripped now, okay, yeah, no, I want to see this because I have plastic ice cube trays at home. Mine looks roughly like yours, only blue. Oh, yours is much more pliable than mine. Oh, but mine is so I inherited mine with the house, okay, which we have now lived in for 14 years. So my ice cube tray was, I think, already old by the time I got it. It's plastic, but it is not this pliable, so sometimes I really have to work
Matthew Amster-Burton 18:10
at it. No, yeah, I think that's important, because, like, when I get out smarted by an ice cube tray, I feel very silly.
Molly 18:15
And so do you have? How many of these? Do you have three? But one
Matthew Amster-Burton 18:19
of them lives in storage during the winter and then comes out in the summer. Wow.
Molly 18:24
Okay, we used to have two. We inherited two. Two came with the house. Okay, yeah. Two came with the house. Somehow, one of them is gone. We now have one. We have one ice cube tray. Absolutely no idea. I mean, if Ames were around then, which he has only been around in the past two years. But he's forever throwing things away before, like, I think he threw away like a Patagonia fanny pack. Oh, my God, this kid, little
Matthew Amster-Burton 18:53
dude. It's funny because, because it's not happening at my house.
Molly 18:57
So I also have a little silicone one that came from a kiwi crate, like, a little, like a little male craft subscription thing. There was some sort of project she had to do involving ice and so the Kiwi kit came with a little silicone ice cube tray. And I feel like it leaves a weird taste, interesting.
Matthew Amster-Burton 19:19
I Yeah, the silicone ones, I feel like I have to, like, work too hard to push the cubes out. Yeah. I
Molly 19:24
feel like I'm always sort of, like, contorting things or flipping them onto the counter. Or I do, like the old fashioned twisty, plastic twisty thing.
Matthew Amster-Burton 19:33
Did you ever have this style when you were a kid? Or was it always,
Molly 19:36
no, when I was a kid, it was always either in the door or because when
Matthew Amster-Burton 19:41
I was a kid, sometimes be upbraided for not filling the ice cube tray. Oh, which, which is totally fair. My
Molly 19:47
spouse does this thing where they like to fill the ice cube tray, like just a little bit, because they like the way that the ice freezes when it's a thin little rectangle, and then they can kind of chum. Bit. Okay, better. They like that. That's fair, but that annoys me. When I pull out the ice cube tray and it's like a whole bunch of, like, half a centimeter thick ice cubes. We
Matthew Amster-Burton 20:15
haven't talked about, like, what kind of ice you might get out in the world, other than an ice luge, because, like, when I get a drink, or even just see a drink at a bar with, like, a big ass cube or spherical Ice Cube, I love that. Yeah.
Molly 20:29
So do you feel that that is worth the effort of your bartender? You're into it?
Matthew Amster-Burton 20:34
Yeah, I feel like it's worth the effort of someone else doing that we do have, or possibly don't have any more because we, we may have, like, purged them at some point, but we did have some plastic spherical ice molds, because, because, like, December and I were getting into I would make an old fashioned and they would make a squirt with bitters, and we and we would drink them with these giant ice cubes. Oh, I love that, that we kind of got bored of that.
Molly 20:57
Oh, that's fun. I've never had a spherical Ice Cube maker. But I remember when we first opened, or a couple of bartenders we've had at Essex have gotten geeky about, like, making their own ice, and what they've tended to do is take, like, they go to a glacier, they take, like a half size hotel pan, so you know what I mean, yeah, chafing dish, yeah, and they have frozen a sheet of ice in it, maybe like two inches thick, and then they have run hot water over it, flipped it out, I like this, and then cut it up with serrated red knife. Oh, okay, I was close into and you know, they've succeeded in making very thin, excuse me, very clear ice, which then they cut into like, big cubes, but they're not like, perfectly polished or perfectly cubed on the sides. But okay, no, it made a nice, very appealing. I don't think they do it. Then they're doing this on their own time, right? You're not paying them. Oh, absolutely not. No, no, we were paying them, and I don't think that's happening anymore. Okay, okay, so I think I kind of, like, zoned out and forgot what I was doing when I was doing the research for this episode. I learned so much about ice makers, and I just
Matthew Amster-Burton 22:12
I started was getting the idea of, like, oh, maybe we got through this faster than I thought, and we're almost done with the episode. But that is not the case. Well, I just
Molly 22:20
want to talk about a couple, a couple different people in the history of ice please. So, you know, I mean, originally, I
Matthew Amster-Burton 22:27
just remembered a memory lane, which was that, like, one of the first apartments that we lived in, the second apartment that we lived in in Seattle, that we moved into in like, 1997 had, like an ice box built into the wall that, like, used to be the refrigerator that you would like, like, put a chunk of ice, chunk of ice in. Like, we never used it, of course, but it was clear that's what it was. Wow. Cool. The building was from like, the teens. Wow. Yeah,
Molly 22:52
wow. Well, this, this makes a lot of sense. So, you know, just for a little bit of history, I'm gonna quote from Helen Rosner again, yeah, please. And then we'll talk about ice makers. So all ice is frozen water, but not all ice is created equal. True ice is texture. Of course, here she's, you know, she's building up to talking about pellet ice. But ice is texture. The dense blue hunks carved off of Swiss glaciers and hauled across Europe in the 1800s were heavier dense blue hunks, heavier and harder than the glassy cubes pried out of wintry New England ponds, packed in isolating nests of hay and sent across America by train in the early 1900s neither was exactly the same as the cloudy ice made in ancient Persia by engineers who directed water into underground channels where it froze layer upon layer until it was thick enough to be broken up, yeah, and transported to massive pyramidal, pyramidal pair.
Matthew Amster-Burton 23:48
I don't think I've ever tried to say that word before,
Molly 23:52
pyramid shaped subterranean desert ice houses called yak chals, which I believe means just like ice storage, that is awesome. Isn't that so cool? Yeah. So, I mean, you know, is
Matthew Amster-Burton 24:03
there, like, a YouTube video where someone has, like, recreated this process today? Probably,
Molly 24:08
yeah, probably. I mean, as you can see, I did a lot of research, but I didn't make it that far. Okay, humans have been finding ice in various ways for a long time. But as you can imagine, there were a lot of reasons that people wanted to be able to get ice exactly when they wanted him. And I was quite surprised to discover that in the history of ice making, one thing that drove some real innovation was so this American doctor, he built a refrigerator because he wanted to make ice to cool the air for his yellow fever patients. Wow. Okay,
Matthew Amster-Burton 24:44
so wasn't he about air conditioning? Basically,
Molly 24:47
yes. So this was in 1844 his name was John gorey. He is, you know, very much, considered one of the fathers of refrigeration, his original machine and. Plans are in the Smithsonian. We did
Matthew Amster-Burton 25:01
some episode where we talked about, a lot about how refrigerators work. But I don't know if we talked about any of these guys. I
Molly 25:07
don't think we talked about these guys. But so, you know, basically, people started figuring out how to make, like, artificially cold spaces, like refrigeration, starting in the mid 1700s but initially they weren't using it. They didn't then know what to
Matthew Amster-Burton 25:22
do with it. Like, once they made this ice, they were just like, Well, they didn't
Molly 25:25
know what to do with like, oh, we we figured out how to make a little space cold. Now what do we do? Yeah, sure. So basically, you know, starting in 750 people, around 1750 people were tinkering with the technology. Wow, that sounds like a long time ago. It
Matthew Amster-Burton 25:40
is a long time ago. That's like before Altoids were invented. Anyway, which are a great way to cool the small chamber known as your mouth.
Molly 25:48
That's right in like the mid 1850s so about 100 years of tinkering in people started developing some stuff that we might recognize a little bit more. Did you
Matthew Amster-Burton 25:57
read the book 100 years of tinkering
Molly 26:02
in 1834 this guy named Jacob Perkins, who was an American, he built the first refrigerator, refrigerating machine that used ether in a vapor compression cycle. Yes, we talked a lot about the vapor compression cycle, that's right. So he received a bunch of patents, and he basically is kind of considered the father of the idea of, like a vapor compression refrigerator. Man, I
Matthew Amster-Burton 26:27
want to be considered the father of an idea. Can be a dumb idea. I don't care.
Molly 26:32
And then, so then we have, you know, the doctor who wanted to cool the air for his yellow fever patients. That was in 1844 this was Dr John Gorrie, that's right, he did not get to market his invention, though, because a guy named Frederick Tudor, who was the Boston Ice King. Frederick Tudor had been making a lot of money for a long time harvesting ice from those ponds Helen Rosner mentioned in New England and selling it all over the place. And he was like, Fuck, no, John Gorrie, you are not gonna sell your refrigeration technology. And he, like, spread all sorts of false rumors about John Gorrie. Wow. And ultimately, I thought people in the old days were nice. I know ultimately John Gorrie died, like, bankrupt and humiliated. So, so yeah, you had these, like, ice barons, basically, who were, you know, smearing these inventors. That's
Matthew Amster-Burton 27:25
terrible. And also, it's really funny that the dispute was like, Why should we have refrigerators when we can get ice from ponds? That's right,
Molly 27:33
there was just a lot of patent stuff. There was a lot happening in the 1850s vapor compression and so on and so forth. I
Matthew Amster-Burton 27:41
mean, honestly, like, refrigeration has been such a problematic technology that possibly we were better off with cutting ice out of ponds. But
Molly 27:47
so basically, all this was going on and we still weren't even to edible ice yet. We were just talking about ice for, like, cooling rooms and for shipping, like meat. Okay, okay. It wasn't until 1929 that some guy named Jorgen Hans invented the first ice machine to produce edible ice. But even he was sort of like, Eh, whatever. I'm gonna get into air conditioning instead, he sort of abandoned that this technology. I mean, I think me being just a lay person. I don't think about ice as having served many purposes besides being edible. No, that's, yeah, that's like, it was around. I mean, people were messing around with making ice for so long before they even thought, like, let's turn this into an edible thing, right?
Matthew Amster-Burton 28:31
But, but it's because, like, you know, soon after that, like, we were able to, like, make things cold without ice being involved as an intermediary, which I think, like, my guess is probably kind of hadn't really occurred to people yet, like there were, like, technological limitations, but also it's just like, well, if we want to make things really cold, we're going to need some ice. And it turns out, you don't
Molly 28:56
well. So as you mentioned, refrigeration is super problematic. All kinds of toxic gasses and stuff Freon. Freon was invented, or sort of discovered, around 1930 from what I understand, refrigerators still operate using vapor compressors, yes, but these days, they tend to use ammonia, hydrocarbons and carbon dioxide. Okay, that sounds delicious, right? The first ice makers started to appear in American homes in the mid 1950s Okay, and the way, and the first shape that you would have found in those ice makers was the crescent shape. Okay,
Matthew Amster-Burton 29:34
while you were telling this, I'm gonna see if I can find the vampire shape that I'm talking about. Okay, I don't know if I'm misremembering this, or what? So,
Molly 29:41
yeah, so automatic ice makers in homes first produced those crescent shaped ice cubes, and they were formed in metal molds, and then this little arm would come and, like, flip the mold over or something, to dispense the ice into a little bin. Later, ice makers used flexible plastic molds. Which made it easier to kind of kick the ice out. And then, like, the the freezer door dispensers for ice came along about 10 years later in 1965
Matthew Amster-Burton 30:11
okay, yeah, no. I mean, this isn't something that, if it, if it exists, it only exists in the 80s. And of course, like now they just want to, like, sell me, like, new ice makers, so I don't know. Like listeners contact at spilled milk podcast.com Let me. Let me know if you remember an ice maker from the 80s that produced ice that had some sort of prongs coming off it. Matthew, do you ever buy ice every once in a while? And it's always like, we realize we need more ice for something, and then, like, we go to the store and hope they have some which, which they do. But, yeah, but like, I associate it with, like an annoying situation, whether like it should. I should associate with, like a party punch. You should.
Molly 30:53
It is always remarkable to me that when I need a big bag of ice, like they're always out there, ice is like something we never have to think about anymore, whereas we used to have to, like, carve it off of glaciers and stuff, or ponds, or ponds. But anyway, I always buy it when we go camping. You always need some in the cooler. Yeah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 31:11
we don't. We don't, don't have a cooler. And I'm not sure if we've ever owned a cooler, okay, yeah, interesting, right? Yeah, so interesting, yeah. And we don't have a TV. And
Molly 31:21
hold on. Can we talk a little bit about why some ice is clear and other ice is
Matthew Amster-Burton 31:26
not? I've had this explained to me many times, and then I always forget, great,
Molly 31:29
okay, ice is cloudy for any number of reasons, most commonly trapped air bubbles. Okay. I mean, it can also be impurities in the water or whatever, but most of the time, yes, it could be cursed. Could have milk in it. No, no. But most of the time, what it is is, is tiny, little air bubbles that get trapped. The reason that this happens often is that the ice freezes really quickly, and ice that freezes quickly tends to be cloudier, okay, I guess it's like there's less time for the the air bubbles,
Matthew Amster-Burton 32:06
because I have no idea,
Molly 32:08
I don't either, but, but anyway, apparently ice that freezes more slowly is clearer because it
Matthew Amster-Burton 32:14
has fewer air bubbles. Okay, so that says probably denser. It is denser
Molly 32:18
so it melts more slowly. Yeah. So ice that is cloudy is also is going to melt faster, all
Matthew Amster-Burton 32:24
right? Is there a way to make clear ice at home? Because I feel like the ice that I make in my freezer, Oh, should I turn the temperature on my freezer up?
Molly 32:32
There are so many, I'm sure there are so many articles out there from bartenders, like, here's how to make crystal clear ice at home. Yeah. And I
Matthew Amster-Burton 32:41
think I think I feel like at some point we might have even, like, had an ad for some sort of kit that would help you do this,
Molly 32:45
yeah. I mean, some, I think there have been like, little machines that sort of slowly jiggle the ice as, like that, like, as it melts, or as it as it freezes, a really funny jiggling and motion so that the air bubbles travel up and out. Yeah, it kind of
Matthew Amster-Burton 33:01
looks like you got the boneless
Molly 33:04
hands. Oh, anyway, that was our ice episode. That
Matthew Amster-Burton 33:06
was wonderful, the glaciers of Alaska to the ponds of Boston to your freezer, the Ice Man clump it around. Okay, who wrote that? Eugene O'Neill, is that right? I
Molly 33:25
have no idea. I didn't even know it was a play. Yeah, it is okay. I
Matthew Amster-Burton 33:28
think, I think it's been made into a movie, also, probably a really exciting movie. Do we have any segments? Yes, yes, I
Molly 33:36
have a I have a segment. Do
Matthew Amster-Burton 33:38
you have a now? But
Molly 33:38
what I sure do?
So on this show, we really aim to stay on top of, like, the latest in culture. Yep, so today, I would like to offer to you an album that came out in 2017
Matthew Amster-Burton 33:56
Okay, perfect. That I've been guilty of this. I remember
Molly 34:00
hearing about this album when it came out, and I listened to it a bunch. In fact, I had saved it in Spotify. And the other day, a friend was asking me for some recommendations of like, kind of gay music for her kid. Her kid wanted to hear songs about, like, girls in love with girls and boys in love with boys. Okay, so I was sort of scouring my Spotify. Are there any songs like that? All my gay stuff. And I wouldn't say that this is very gay, but the artist is gay. The album I'm talking about is half light by Rostam Batman glitch, who was one of the founding members of Vampire Weekend and is well known as a producer. This is a solo album of his. He is openly gay, and there are a couple of songs on it where he sings about, like, you know, a boy kissing your neck or whatever, and that's really fun. But more than anything, it's just so catchy. Oh my god. It's so catchy. It's really beautifully produced. He is of Indian descent, and he pulls Fauci. From a lot of, like, Indian sounding instruments, or sort of Indian sounds. Yeah, it's a fantastic pop album from 2017 Yeah, no,
Matthew Amster-Burton 35:10
I feel like, I feel like, if Moll, if you're gonna start recommending, like, old indie rock albums, then like, it's gonna open up some sort of floodgate where, that's
Molly 35:17
all I'm ever gonna talk about. Oh, whoops. But, you know, I wouldn't say it's, like, really gay, but it's a little bit gay. And one thing I really like about one to 10, one thing I really like about his singing is it always sounds like he's smiling, oh, like that, or like he's telling you a secret. It's
Matthew Amster-Burton 35:34
kind of fun. Oh, this is something I've talked about with my voice teacher, really, because, like, yeah, because my voice doesn't normally sound a lot like that, but sometimes that's what I want, and it's like surprisingly tricky to do. Oh, okay, well, anyway, you should take a listen. All right. There we go. That is a half light by rostom, but Mang, our producer is Abby cercatella. You can rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts, and you can, you can go hang out with a lot of ice obsessed listeners at so many spilled milk, at everything spelled belk.reddit.com, like, what's the best song about ice? Is it ice? Ice, baby? Is it cold as ice? Those are the two that I thought
Molly 36:18
of. A cold as ice. The
Matthew Amster-Burton 36:21
thing I literally just said, yeah.
Molly 36:24
Can we come
Matthew Amster-Burton 36:28
up with one more song about ice How about pour some
Molly 36:32
sugar on me? It's white. It's
Matthew Amster-Burton 36:35
white. I'm Matthew hipster Burton. That's what the Iceman does.
Molly 36:50
I'm gonna skip the next thing. Okay, you know, actually, I'm gonna skip the next thing too. Okay.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai