I was never able to find ice in the restaurants or anywhere! What up with that? Is it the culture??? I tought that was really odd. Also the drinks that they give you anywhere are not cold enough. Thats my pet peeve now. No ice? GRRR!!!!!! :-(
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There are a couple of reasons for the lack of ice, which is true of many countries around the world. The biggest one is that it was not until very recently that the water supplies of many countries, including European ones, were sufficiently safe to rely on for making ice. (This is also why, for example, tea and beer are so popular in Britain and why Europeans in general drink so much bottled water, mineral water, and sparkling water.) Water supplies in the United States were much safer, since there were very few people living near them. Still today, in fact, we here in New York drink untreated water from resevoirs in uninhabitated areas upstate. No one in Paris would have dreamed of drinking water from the Seine, since it was where the sewers drained.
Europeans managed to make a virtue of necessity and build an entire food culture in which plain water and ice plays very little role. Hence the lack of ice.
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ACTUALLY., it has more to do with electicity then clean water, at least now. Ice making requires electricity, since ice is generally a low or no revenue product , why offer it when it costs so much to make, plus most europeons( this is not just a %26quot;France %26quot; thing) has smaller appliances then us, ( they think our huge double sided fridge freezers are monsters,! LOL) so no one has a lot of freezer space, restaurants and cafes the same.. space and energy spent on making a storing a product that no one pays for,, well that doesn%26#39;t add up right?
I know many say they couldn%26#39;t find cold drinks but that has never been my experience, I even found cans of very cold pop in corner stores ( I travelled last time with a teenager) .
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What%26#39;s up with your expectations?
Why do you think it is odd that you can%26#39;t find your own cultural practices in other countries?
The Europeans set a great example of how to use resources with more restraint than some other western cultures, mine included.
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Hmmm...I took the opposite approach. While I was surprised to have my diet coke delivered to the table with a glass but no ice, I drank it as the locals do, and continued to so throughout my trip. Even when offered ice (which was rare) I declined. Interestingly, by the end of the week I found myself enjoying them more w/o the ice. I%26#39;m not a big soda drinker, but I did like these. Plus I felt more a part of the local culture that way which, as a tourist, was a bonus.
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An interesting theory, Crans, but largely myth. For one thing Paris has been noted by many visitors over many centuries for both the purity and abundance of its water supply, going all the way back to the Roman emperor Julian (4th century). The percentage of dwellings in Paris that had piped water by the mid-19th century was higher than that of any other major city in the world and the consumption of water by Parisians was (in part as a consequence) among the highest. (See Paris: The Biography of a City, C. Jones among other sources). Both Napoleon I and Napoleon III undertook major expansions of the city%26#39;s water supply to cope with a rapidly expanding population.
As for the comment about beer, beer requires a pure source of water for the brewing process, so the existence of a beer-drinking society does not indicate an absence of pure water but rather the opposite.
Obviously not all urban water supplies in Europe were pure any more than they were in the early history of the United States where outbreaks of cholera and typhus and other water-borne diseases were no less common in the cities than they were in many parts of Europe.
Equally the availability of pure water was dependent, at least in part, (as was much else) on wealth and social class. in many places, and not just in Europe, the wealthy had access to generally safe water for a long time before it became widely available to the poor and working-class. in part of course that was simply because the importance of clean water as a fundamental matter of public health was not understood until quite late in the 19th century.
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lilybelle264: the simple answer to your question is yes, it is %26quot;the culture.%26quot;
I%26#39;m not exactly sure what Crans means by %26quot;until very recently%26quot;, but the water in almost all of western Europe and has been potable since long before anyone had the ability to make ice. (Paris began its overhall of their water system in 1854 to make it safe for drinking). It is true that about 10% of Europe (almost all in Eastern Europe) in rural areas do not have safe water or sanitation, and that compared to the US efforts monitored by the EPA, et al, it may not be perfect everywhere, but I would pretty much still contend that it%26#39;s more of a US cultural attitude to add ice to make things colder and to, frankly, mask the flavor.
Given the choice, European visitors to the US will generally opt to stay away from the excessive amount of ice that we use in drinks, because it takes away from the flavor by both cooling it down and by watering it down. The French drink their white wine a little warmer than we do, not because they don%26#39;t want to spend the money on electricity to keep it colder, but because they believe it actually tastes better at a slightly warmer temperature. It%26#39;s the same with beer. If you look on the side of a bottle of European beer, there will most likely be a recommendation for the temperature....somewhere between 6-12 deg C or 45-55 deg F. Most Americans would serve their beer below zero if it wouldn%26#39;t freeze. In the US, we also keep food colder, or freeze it, because we want it to last longer. In general, the French are more inclined to want to eat things fresh, that haven%26#39;t been frozen, so they have less of a need for a means to freeze things, i.e., water.
All of these things together essentially make up a lifetime of doing something a certain way, which develops one%26#39;s taste and subconciously determines how we like things and how we don%26#39;t. Americans typically like things colder or on ice, because that%26#39;s how they were raised, and the French are the opposite, because that%26#39;s how they were raised.
Oddly perhaps, after spending more time in Paris than in the US in the late 80%26#39;s, I too took a fancy to drinking things without ice, and to this day, I don%26#39;t put ice in anything. I specifically ask for a non-frosted glass when I get a beer at a bar, and people are shocked when they come to my house and I don%26#39;t have a single ice tray in my freezer (I could probably be a better host). I don%26#39;t allow waitstaff to put a bottle of white wine in a bucket of ice at a restaurant, I prefer water (bottled or otherwise) at room temperature.....and all sorts of other %26quot;crazy%26quot; things.
It%26#39;s just a matter of taste.
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Sorry, Irish, I didn%26#39;t mean to repeat your post....I was busy typing when you posted.
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First you infer in several posts that Asian restaurants in Paris are health hazards now you%26#39;re complaining about lack of ice. Did you even try asking for some ice?
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No problem, Arrow. I didn%26#39;t thnk your post repeated mine but rather added to and extended it.
And I think all your points about the taste issue are right on the money.
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My late mother in law drank scotch and water - no ice. In an American resort the only way we could get her this was to ask for a scotch on the rocks - but hold the rocks! I am totally serious.
Ah well off into the bad lands of England clutching my gourd of beer to find fresh drinking water for my tribe and to hunt lunch!
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