I was at the Brewer's service station on St. Michael's Drive not long ago filling a 44-ounce foam cup with tea and ice — mostly ice — when I overheard a young man in line behind me comment to a friend: "They have good ice here."

He's right, of course. Brewer's offers a nice ice, crushed into little pieces. (It comes out of a Cornelius ice machine, an appliance that makes the ice and dispenses it along with the drinks.)

When I got home a few minutes later, I sat my iced tea on a table and opened the Sunday New York Times I had just bought. There, on the front page of its Style section, was an article on ice.

"There are those — and don't wear yourself out looking for statistical surveys on this one — for whom water in chunky frozen form is a source not merely of interest but obsession," Guy Trebay wrote. "You can find them, of course — alongside every other compulsive with an affinity group or microcohort — on the Web."

"Wow!" I thought. "Two examples in one day! I'm not alone. Others are also obsessed with ice."


"It started with an ice cube," writes Mariana Gosnell in Ice: The Nature, the History, and the Uses of an Astonishing Substance. "I happened to be looking at an ice cube floating in a glass of iced tea one day when it came to me: hard water — what a concept!"

Once motivated by that ice cube and a few other frozen water experiences, Gosnell — who had been a science and medicine writer for Newsday — managed to fill 560 pages of her book with amazingly interesting information about frozen water.

Pichet Ong, the chef and owner of the dessert restaurant P*ONG in New York City, claims the Chinese were the first to invent ways to collect and store ice. "The Chinese were the first to create ice drinks and desserts," he writes in his cookbook, The Sweet Spot: Asian-Inspired Desserts. "There are no exact records of this, mind you, but a poem in the Shih Ching (the Food Canons), written around 1100 B.C., records ice harvesting and storage, and we can safely assume that iced sweets weren't far behind."

But Gosnell doesn't mention the Chinese in her book. In fact, she says folks in Mesopotamia — an area in what today is mostly modern Iraq — began selling ice along the Euphrates River 4,000 years ago.

"Ancient Egyptians and Athenians as well as Mesopotamians would throw ice or snow directly into their wine and water to cool them," she writes. "The Roman emperor Nero reputedly had snow placed around a goblet or flask so the snow would cool the water inside yet not taint it. In 17th century Spain and Italy, ice or snow was sometimes slipped into glass pockets in wine vessels so the wine could be chilled without being diluted."

Centuries ago, people brought snow and ice down from the hills and mountains by cart or on the backs of animals, Gosnell says. But the ice and snow could get dirty, and thieves lurked around, ready to steal the cold stuff.

According to Wikipedia, Persia was storing ice in the desert in the middle of summer by 400 B.C. In winter, ice was brought from nearby mountains and stored underground in naturally cooled ice pits that had walls that were thick and insulated. The pits were connected to a qanat, a water-management system that provided a supply of underground water, and windcatchers drew "cool subterranean air up from the qanat to maintain temperatures inside the space at low levels, even (on) hot summer days. As a result, the ice melted slowly and ice was available year-round," the Web site reports.

Italians eventually set up what they called "ice reservoirs" or "ice lakes," Gosnell writes. During cold spells, ice in England came from estate ponds or from Scottish lochs. Folks living in the northern U.S. found their ice in frozen lakes, ponds and rivers.

But, as the author points out, people in hotter parts of the world didn't have ice in those days. So in the early 19th century, Frederick Tudor, a Bostonian, set out to change that. His first shipment of ice — 80 tons cut from a pond on his father's farm — sailed 1,500 miles to Martinique in 1806. The trip took three weeks, much of the ice melted, and Tudor lost $4,500.

Tudor eventually earned the title "The Ice King," but he didn't see a profit in his ice ventures until 1810. By then, he was shipping ice to Cuba. He eventually added Charleston, S.C., Savannah, Ga., and New Orleans to his ports of call.

Then in 1833, another Boston merchant proposed he and Tudor ship ice to India — some 16,000 miles distant, a four-month journey. That May, a brig left for South Asia with 180 tons of ice. When it arrived in Calcutta in September, 100 tons were still frozen.

The writer Henry David Thoreau watched Tudor's ice cutters working at Walden Pond in the winter of 1846-47 and wrote in his journal: "The sweltering inhabitants of Charleston and New Orleans, of Madras and Bombay and Calcutta, drink at my well. ... The pure Walden water is mingled with the sacred water of the Ganges."


While Tudor was hauling ice around the world, an American physician, Dr. John Gorrie, built a machine, or refrigerator, in the mid-19th century to make ice to cool his yellow fever and malaria patients, according to Gosnell.

Gorrie's machine, she says, compressed air in a chamber. When the air was released, it expanded rapidly and absorbed heat from the brine surrounding the chamber in which the ice was being made. The chilled brine then drew the heat from the water inside the vessel, making ice.

Although Gorrie received British and American patents for his invention, he was never able to raise the money he needed to build a plant to make large quantities of ice to sell to the public. Gosnell says of Gorrie's efforts: "Americans may have had a huge appetite for ice, but most of them weren't ready yet for ice to come out of a machine instead of a hole in the ground. Some thought that making ice yourself was the devil's work."

"Ice cube trays first appeared in the 'Domestic Electric Refrigerator' invented in America by Fred W. Wolf Jr. in 1914," reports the Web site, Practically Edible. According to another Web site, Almost a Chef, an American, Guy L. Tinkham, who was a vice president of a household appliance company, designed the first flexible steel ice cube tray in 1933. "The tray bent sideways to remove the ice cubes," Wikipedia says. It sold for 50 cents.

An American inventor, Lloyd Groff Copeman, designed the first rubber ice-cube tray. His inspiration? While collecting sap for maple syrup in 1928, he noticed ice and slush "flaked off his rubber boots easily, rather than adhering to them," according to the Internet.


Financial folks say about $2.5 billion in packaged ice is sold each year. The International Packaged Ice Association estimates 86 million tons of ice are sold annually in the United States. That's about 2 pounds per person per day, the organization adds.

But Guy Trebay, writing in the Times, says the amount of ice individuals actually purchase is much smaller: "The average American buys four bags of packaged ice each year; 80 percent of all packaged ice is sold between Memorial and Labor days."

Ice can be made in a variety of forms. Something on eBay called acitydiscount says ice machine manufacturers "coin terms like tube ice, crescent cube, nugget ice, top hat ice to describe what comes out of their machines." But only three basic types of commercial ice actually exist — cubed, flaked and crushed. "Typically crushed and cubed ice are used for beverages while flaked ice lends itself better to fast cooling and use in displays such as salad bars and seafood cases," acitydiscount says.

More than 80 percent of commercial ice consumed in the United States is cubed, acitydiscount concludes.

Ice cubes offered by a company called Water Bank of America are possible the ultimate in frozen water. Unfortunately, the company's Web site is under construction, or so it says. But other Web sites have stepped in to fill the void.

WBOA produces Icerocks, as its ice is called, by "packaging spring water from the Vendée region of France's Massif Central in airtight containers that you simply pop in your freezer to make ... sealed ice cubes," says one site. "These glorious cubes are hermetically packaged in disposable, recyclable containers, providing complete guarantee of hygiene and safety. As a side effect you will get real good looking ice cubes too."

Another site reports that three-quarters of a liter of water costs $5 to $6. "But can you put a price on taste?" it says.






Freezing it with a little sugar and water transforms even an ordinary wine into a pleasing dessert. Make this light and flavorful granita with any leftover wine or even with a bottle you've opened and found disappointing. Or if you have a little of this and that left after a party, make your own blend. No one is looking — mix red and white to make rosé if you like.

A little whipped cream on top is lovely but not essential. Red wine granita makes a particularly good topping for vanilla ice cream.

RED OR WHITE WINE GRANITA
(Makes about 2 cups)

1 cup red or white wine or a mixture
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons water
3 tablespoons sugar
Sweetened whipped cream for topping (optional)

In a medium bowl, mix the wine, water and sugar until the sugar dissolves. Pour the mixture into a shallow baking dish and freeze until almost completely frozen, 1-1/2 to 2 hours. Use a fork to scrape and break the mixture into shards and crystals. Return the pan to the freezer to freeze completely. Scrape and toss the granita one more time. Keep frozen until serving.

Serve in stemmed glasses, dolloped with whipped cream if desired.

(Recipe from Pure Desserts by Alice Medrich, Artisan Books, 2007)




"This granita is the sweetest thing we make at Zuni," Judy Rodgers writes in The Zuni Cafe Cookbook, "and yet it is refreshing. This effect requires fiercely rich espresso. Weaker espresso will make an insipid, pale, sugary granita not worth the effort." Rodgers' espresso machine doses 1/4 cup water per espresso, and they use 1/4 ounce ground espresso beans (1-1/2 tablespoons, very tightly packed) per dose.

"Don't use instant espresso, or any sort of brewed coffee," she warns.

ESPRESSO GRANITA WITH WHIPPED CREAM
(Serves 5 to 6)

For the granita:
1 cup sugar, or to taste
2 cups espresso, room temperature
3 tablespoons water
For the whipped cream:
About 1/2 cup cold heavy cream
About 2 teaspoons sugar

Make the granita: Dissolve all but 2 tablespoons of the sugar in the espresso and taste. It should taste too sweet; if not, gradually add some or all of the remaining sugar, until it does. Add the water. Pour into a stainless steel pan or glass dish in which the coffee forms a pool about an inch deep. Freeze until solid. Due to the high concentration of sugar, this may take up to 8 hours.

Choose a glass, plastic or stainless storage vessel, about 3 cups capacity, with a tightly fitting lid. Make sure it is dry, snap on the lid and place in the freezer.

Place the pan of frozen espresso on a cool surface. At the Zuni Cafe, we chop with a pair of stainless steel pastry scrapers. They are easy to maneuver, and the relatively dull edges tease the crystals apart without slicing them up. (You can make do with one scraper; it will just take longer.) A knife blade produces a finer, denser texture.

Once the juice or purée has set a very thick crust but has not quite frozen through, usually 1 to 2 hours, give it a preliminary round of chopping: Place the pan on a cool surface in a cool room. Use the scraper to cut through and lift the layer of coarse-crystal ice, amalgamating it with the unfrozen core. A few cuts and folds are usually sufficient. Cover the pan and return to the freezer. Check hourly, and when the whole is firm to the touch but still yields easily to a stab with the scraper, it is ready for the final chopping.

Set the pan on a cool surface and methodically chop the crystalline blocks into a regular flaky, granular mass. This can be tedious, but is easy — as long as you have not let the liquid freeze too solid. If it is rock hard, it will take more brawn to cut through the chunks, and you may overwork some bits as you try to split the harder pebbles. At the opposite extreme, in rare instances where the mixture is fairly sweet or where the purée was thick, the liquid may never fully freeze hard, and it will chop to a rich, grainy-slushy texture. Such "defective" granitas can be exquisite. Transfer to the chilled container, snap on the lid and place in the freezer.

Ten to 15 minutes before serving, turn the container upside down in the freezer. (The espresso syrup sometimes drains from the ice crystals, like syrup in a snow cone; turning it upside down will redistribute the syrup.) Place 5- to 6-ounce serving bowls or glasses in the freezer to chill. I like to use clear, narrow, fluted stemware to show off the layers and crystals.

Make the whipped cream: Combine the cream and sugar and whip stiffly.

To serve: Layer the granita and whipped cream like a parfait in the chilled glasses. There should be nearly as much whipped cream as granita. The surface of the cream will freeze where it is in contact with the granita, and the succession of voluptuous chewy and slushy textures is delightful.

(Recipe from The Zuni Cafe Cookbook by Judy Rodgers, W.W. Norton, 2002)


This recipe is adapted from one in the Moro East cookbook by Sam and Sam Clark (Ebury Press, a division of Random House, 2007). Moro, the Clarks' restaurant in London, England, has won numerous awards for its exploration of Mediterranean food, with a special emphasis on Spain and Muslim Mediterranean traditions.

Where the Clarks called for rosewater, I substituted pomegranate molasses. The somewhat tart and bracing granita was delicious even without the frozen pomegranate seeds and mint leaves; feel free to make them optional.

POMEGRANATE GRANIZADO
(Serves 4)

100 grams superfine granulated sugar (about 7 tablespoons)
2 tablespoons runny honey
450 milliliters (a scant 2 cups) pomegranate juice, squeezed from about 5 pomegranates, or poured from a bottle of Pom brand juice from concentrate)
1 teaspoon pomegranate molasses
Optional: Seeds of half a pomegranate, frozen
Optional: A few fresh mint leaves

Combine the sugar, honey, pomegranate juice and pomegranate molasses and stir until the sugar is completely dissolved. Transfer to a baking dish, place in the freezer, and stir every 20-30 minutes with a fork as it freezes, to produce blood-red crystals of fragrant ice.

Serve with or without the frozen seeds and a few mint leaves strewn on top.




When Paige Retus was growing up, her mom used to take her and her two sisters shopping, and when the girls had had enough, she'd leave them at the soda fountain in the department store. All three ordered raspberry-lime rickeys and considered themselves to be very adult, very cool, very hip. Retus developed this updated version for those who want to capture that same feeling.

Warning: This lime granita is so zippy it should hurt.

Place a 3- x 13-inch shallow pan in the freezer at least 20 minutes before making each part of this dessert.

LIME GRANITA WITH RASPBERRY CRUSH
(Makes about 6 cups)

For the Lime Granita:
2 cups water
1 cup sugar
2 cups fresh lime juice
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
For the Raspberry Crush:
2 pints fresh raspberries
1/4 to 1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice

Make the Lime Granita: Place the water and sugar in a small saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat. Set aside to cool to room temperature. Add the juices and stir well. Transfer to the frozen pan and return to the freezer for 30 minutes. Stir with a fork, being careful to get to the edges. Continue freezing and stirring every 30 minutes until the mixture starts to look slushy and have little shards of ice, but not be frozen solid, about 1 to 1-1/2 hours. Cover and freeze for up to 3 days. Stir again with the fork if necessary.

Make the raspberry crush: Using your hand, gently crush 1/2 cup of the raspberries. Place the crushed and whole berries, sugar and lemon juice in a bowl, mix to combine and refrigerate at least 1 hour and up to 2 days.

To assemble the dessert: Portion three layers each of Lime Granita and Raspberry Crush into glasses.

(Recipes from The Olives Dessert Table by Todd English, Paige Retus and Sally Sampson, Simon & Schuster, 2000)

VENEZUELAN-SPICED RUM-AND-LIME GRANITA
(Makes about 3 cups)

2 tablespoons (1 ounce) firmly packed dark brown sugar
1/4 cup (1-3/4 ounces)
1-1/4 cups water
1 slice fresh ginger, 1/4 inch thick, peeled
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
2 tablespoons coarsely chopped fresh cilantro
1 lime zest strip, about 2 inches long by 1/2 inch wide
1/2 vanilla bean
6 tablespoons to 1/2 cup fresh lime juice (from about 4 large limes)
2 teaspoons dark rum

In a small saucepan, combine the brown and granulated sugars, water, ginger, coriander, cilantro and lime zest. Split the vanilla bean lengthwise; with the tip of the knife, scrape the seeds into the saucepan, and then toss in the empty pod. Place over medium to medium-high heat and cook, stirring to dissolve the sugar, for about 5 minutes or until the mixture comes to a boil. Remove the pan from the heat and let steep for 20 minutes.

Strain the mixture through a fine-mesh strainer into a large liquid measuring cup for ease of pouring. Stir in the lime juice to taste and then add the rum. Pour the mixture into a shallow freezer-proof container that will hold at least 3 cups of liquid and won't react badly to scraping with a fork, such as a 9-inch square Pyrex dish. Place the container in the freezer.

After 1-1/2 hours, remove it from the freezer and rake it with a fork to break up the ice crystals, making sure to scrape the bottom and sides. Return the container to the freezer and then continue to rake the mixture every 20 minutes for 1 hour.

Cover tightly with plastic wrap and store in the freezer until you are ready to serve. You can make it up to 3 days ahead as long as the container is well sealed. Remove from the freezer about 20 minutes serving and rake it once more to break up the granita.

(Recipe from Elizabeth Falkner's Demolition Desserts: Recipes from Citizen Cake, Ten Speed Press, 2007)




Find recipes for the Margarita Granita and the Champagne-Cassis Granita, as well as facinating ice facts and foibles, on this Web site.