Clever Hacks, Cuisine

Icebox

At Cynaguan Coronet one of our meals drowned in the cooler. It was in a zip-top bag that ended up under the melted ice water. It filled up with water and ruined the food.

I . WAS . PISSED!

Coolers are stupid. This is so dumb. The whole setup of a cooler leads to either drowned food or contaminated ice. I hate the idea of accidentally poisoning my family while trying to keep food good. So for about a week after Coronet I mulled over the problem.

I need food to stay cold. Heat rises, cold settles. I need to keep the water from the melting ice away from the food that should be lower than the ice.

After contemplating this for a while I started looking into iceboxes, I asked Google: “how does an ice box work?” reasoning that I could take a page from history and apply that lesson to our modern medieval hobby. Eventually I settled on a solution. I presented my case to my husband and suggested that he should build me an ice box.

He countered that maybe instead we should look to buy an actual antique icebox. It turns out they actually made “apartment sized” antique iceboxes. I found a few online (far away) and then finally my husband found one in a nearby antique shop. We bought it for $150. It’s a beautiful thing, all in oak.

The top 1/2 of the box is setup to hold blocks of ice. As the blocks melt the water goes down a tube at the back of the box and exits out the bottom. The ice sits on metal which is attached to the walls/shelf in the lower portion of the box.

We used it this past week at West An Tir War. The days were in the mid 60s. Two blocks of ice kept it at about 40F in the lower portion of the box for about a day and a half. We stored raw meats and dairy up in the top portion next to the ice blocks. I view this as a total win.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.