Ardgillan- A History

ICE HOUSES
Ice houses originally invented in Persia were buildings used to store ice throughout the year, prior to the invention of the refrigerator. The most common designs involved underground chambers, usually man-made, which were built close to natural sources of winter ice such as freshwater lakes.

During the winter, ice and snow would be taken into the ice house and packed with insulation, often straw or sawdust. It would remain frozen for many months, often until the following winter, and could be used as a source of ice during summer months. The main application of the ice was the storage of perishable foods, but it could also be used simply to cool drinks, or allow ice-cream and sorbet desserts to be prepared

Ice was often imported into the UK from Scandinavia up until the 1950s. Usually only large manor houses had purpose-built buildings to store ice. Many examples of ice houses exist in the UK some of which have fallen into disrepair. The ice house was introduced to Britain around 1660. British ice houses were commonly brick lined, domed structures, with most of their volume underground. Ice houses varied in design depending on the date and builder, but were mainly conical or rounded at the bottom to hold melted ice. They usually had a drain to take away any water. It is recorded that the idea for ice houses was brought to Britain by travellers who had seen similar arrangements in Italy, where peasants collected ice from the mountains and used it to keep food fresh inside caves

Victorian winters were much harsher than in modern times. From 1600-1875 the global climate is known to have experienced a 'little ice-age'. Historical paintings of winter scenery in this period, depict people skating on lakes and ponds, there are even records of the Thames at Tower Bridge freezing over, such that it could be crossed on foot.

Large country estates, before the advent of refridgeration in the early 1900's, preserved their fish & meat by having a supply of ice all year round. It was stored in highly efficient, underground, domed constructions, covered by tons of insulating earth. Ice was also stored for medical purposes. The availability of ice was essential to cool anyone fighting a high fever, which was not uncommon before the discovery of penicillin. The ice would be chipped out and transported in lead lined cases to wherever it was needed.

In the days before refrigeration, food was carefully stored in cellars or larders in the cool basement. As food could not be kept for long, a lot of preserving and pickling took place. Fresh fruit and vegetables which would not keep were made into jams and pickles, so that nothing went to waste. Many large houses had their own ice-house, which meant that fresh fish, sorbets, ice-creams and iced puddings could be served up at dinner parties.

At rich houses which were not so well equipped, the ice-man was called upon to bring a large dripping block of ice before a party. The blocks were imported from Norway or America. In 1887, McManus’ on Capel St. in Dublin provided imported blocks for 15s a ton or 18s delivered. However, as ice was expensive, it was not considered practical to store meat in bulk in this way.

Meat
Instead bacon was cured, beef and mutton were salted, and fish was smoked, salted or pickled. The traditional way of curing bacon was to rub the pork fat with salt and water. The shelf-life of meat could be extended by curing it dry, by smoking it in the chimney over a wood or peat fire. Meat or fish could also be potted or baked in a pie, which could be kept for several weeks under an airtight sealing of clarified fat. Venison was stored in the game-house, where it might hang for several weeks til ‘gamey’.
Meat

The Victorian upper-class ate great quantities of meat and their dinner menus usually included a number of different hot and cold meat courses. While mutton was the main meat enjoyed by the poorer Irish, the rich enjoyed beef, lamb, veal and venison along with poultry and rabbit. Beef was a preserve of the upper classes and was consumed in great quantities. Veal was a little more expensive, but was still a favourite on the dinner table, where the head and brains might be served up as a delicacy.

Cheap mutton and poor veal may have served for ordinary dinners, when the family was not entertaining. Chicken and duck were served as savoury dishes along with pheasant, woodcock, lark and snipe. Meat was roasted on great spits in the kitchen, above large pans which caught the dripping. It was also boiled, broiled or made into pies. Cooked meat was served with rich gravy or sauces such as ramonade sauce (a hot pepper sauce for cold meat or game), sauce Robert (for pork), truffle sauce (for chicken and game) and chestnut sauce (for turkey).

Jugged meat was also popular, with jugged hare or pigeon often gracing the dinner table. The tradition of cooking and serving meat in jugs goes back to the medieval period, when several jugs would be economically placed together in a large cauldron of boiling water. The traditional method was to cook the meat in a tall closed pot without gravy, the natural juices ensuring that it cooked moist and even. By the Victorian period, wine and beef stock might also be added to the jug, with sauce poured over it before serving.

The Victorians had no qualms about eating parts of animals seldom eaten by the Irish today. Mrs Beeton’s book, for example, includes recipes for sheep’s brains with matelot sauce, stuffed bullock’s heart, ox-cheek soup, stewed calf’s ears and fricassee of calf’s feet, to name but a few. The upper-classes were also no strangers to strong-tasting meat - venison, for example, might be hung for several weeks til ‘gamey’ and ‘rescued’ with brine when turning rancid. Ox tongue was one of the few offal dishes eaten by the aristocracy; tripe, for example, was more commonly associated with the lower social classes. Cold tongue was served as a snack or picnic food, while ‘spiced tongue’ was a Christmas favourite, spiced with ginger, cloves, nutmeg and allspice and cooked with onions and carrots.

Fish

Fish mentioned on Irish country house menus include salmon, eels, oysters, lobster, cod, haddock and trout. On aristocratic dinner menus, fish was usually a supplement to meat, and was always greatly outnumbered by meat and poultry dishes. In the early period, much of the fish was salted, pickled or smoked for preservation. Salted cod and pickled salmon or oysters feature widely in early menus, along with the ubiquitous kipper. In large houses, vast quantities of herrings were traditionally salted for the winter and stored in barrels in between layers of salt. Smoked eel, one of the oldest foods in Ireland, was also popular. As eels could be kept fresh in barrels for long periods, they feature in numerous Victorian recipes: Mrs Beeton, for example, gives recipes for eel broth, eel pie, eel sauce, as well as jellied, fried and stewed eel dishes.

Imported anchovies were also very popular on the tables of the wealthy, favourite recipes being ‘anchovies and parmesan cheese’, ‘anchovy toast’ and ‘anchovy sauce’. Large quantities of kippers and oysters would also have been bought in. At Abbeyleix, for example, kippers and oysters were regularly bought by the 100, the former serving for breakfast or sometimes marked as ‘for servants’. Oysters generally appear as second courses, sometimes baked in the oven, sometimes marinated. In the 17th and 18th centuries, oysters were very cheap and were eaten by all social classes. They were still inexpensive by 1800, when 100 oysters cost 2s 2d. In the mid-19th century, however, oysters suddenly went from being a staple of the poor to a luxury of the rich, due to overfishing and pollution