Johann Beckmann - A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins, Volume II (of 2)

Des Cartes Specimina Philosophiæ. Amst. 1650, 4to, p. 216.

Von Hohberg says, in his Adliches Landleben, “The following, which serves more for amusement than use, is well-known to children. If one put snow and saltpetre into a jug, and place it on a table, over which water has been poured, and stir the snow and salt well round in the jug with a stick, the jug will be soon frozen to the table.” This baron, therefore, who, after he had sold his property in Austria on account of the persecution against the Protestants, wrote at Regensburg (Ratisbon), where he died in 1688, at the age of seventy-six, was not acquainted with iced delicacies. Had they been known to him, he would have certainly mentioned them where, in his Book of Cookery, he gives ample directions for laying out a table of the first rank.

[The application of ice to the purposes of confectionary, has, within the last few years, become much more extensive; encouraged, no doubt, by the facility with which it is now procurable at all seasons of the year, and in any quantity. Imitations of peaches, nectarines, apricots, and other fruits, are now produced in ice paste in such perfection, as at first sight to deceive the most practised eye; and such elegances are no longer confined to the tables of the wealthy.]

Instruction pour les Jardins. Paris, 1730, 4to, i. p. 263. The author says that ice in summer is indeed useful; but, as a gardener, he wishes that frost could be prevented; and that ice might be imported from the North, as olives and oranges are from the South. Some years ago, as no ice could be procured on account of the great mildness of the preceding winter, the merchants at Hamburg sent a ship to Greenland for a load of it, by which they acquired considerable profit.