Ice not a food but an important adjunct to food and constituent of certain dishes, has been occurring naturally on the planet ever since freezing temperatures were first reached. Its use for culinary purposes certainly dates very far back in China, in cold regions where foods can be frozen by simply leaving them out of doors. Such use in W. Europe can be traced back to medieval times; and in the tropics to the time when advances in maritime transport made it possible to transport ice for long distances by sea (e.g. in the 19th century when ice from New England lakes was taken to the Caribbean, and also to England).
