ICE

Ice, Karal Ann Marling

Here is an eclectic book!  I expected more information on ice formation, ice chemistry and physics – some scientific insights, but what a fun surprise.  Chapter 1 takes us in to the invention of ice cream and even shows us the recipe for Akutaq (Eskimo ice cream) – crisco, sugar, and berries that you fluff with a spoon and eat.  Or if you live in snow county it was suggested that you blend whipping cream, vanilla, and “clean, fresh snow bearing no signs of recent animal activity.”  You can learn about Eskimo branding that was the best selling ice cream confection – something that was developed by an Iowan after meeting with Russell Stover on a train ride (before Stover made his millions in chocolate),

That was chapter one.  Chapter two really strays into esoteric icelands.  We begin with Uncle Tom’s cabin and the famous crossing of ice floes on the Ohio river and continue to the King and I, before a short history of ice shows!

This book goes beyond eclectic.  The author looks for any and all connections to ice – literature, art, ice palaces, soldiers lost in glaciers, iceboxes to refrigerators, making artificial ice, Frankenstein, Snowmobiles, the painting of Washington Crossing the Delaware…  You get the idea.  It is like a stream of consciousness tied to ice.  Polar explorers, Moby Dick as a symbol for icebergs, eskimoes on display.  It is fun and strange.