The iced parlours of Santiago de Guatemala

Extraction, storage and use of the snow in the XVIII and XIX centuries

Abstract

Before the invention of refrigerators, taking advantage of the frozen water accounted for the man, a fight against nature. In the city of La Antigua Guatemala snow, in its natural state has been scarce, only has been able to take advantage when it has been found on the top of the volcano of Agua during the cold season. Its habitants during the 18th and 19th centuries, cleverly used and adapted procedures and technology of the time, to remove and store it in order to use it in medicine or to food consumption. Being so scarce, it was a well stuck by the Spanish Government. The paperwork generated by the Government, has made it possible to retrieve from oblivion, a genus of industrial architecture built in La Antigua Guatemala.