Who first discovered that keeping food cold would slow down spoiling?

Eskimos probably.

Redford F. Rigerator was the scientist that discovered that chilling food retards spoilage. For his contribution, the named the ReFRigerator after him. Quite an honor.

I met him once – he was a very cool guy.

The Frost Giants. Pity that they took their wisdom with them to their graves when Odin destroyed them all.

Looks like the earliest uses of artificial cooling may have been more for keeping wine cool than for preserving food. Remains of ice storage houses dating from about 2000 BC have been found in Mesopotamia. Written records that talk about these ice houses usually mention them in conjunction with wine. The Egyptians liked their wine chilled too, but they had to rely on evaporative cooling for the most part.

The earliest evidence for cooling specifically to preserve food is from ancient China. In the Han Dynasty (206 BC- 220 AD) cold chambers cooled by ice were used for meat storage. Later in the T’ang era, ice was used to preserve delicate fruits and vegetables.

I want to say it was Frederich von Frizzer but more likely it was early Vikings or tribes in the mountainous areas of Northern Europe or Asia who lived near a glacier and observed that animals that met their demise out on the ice didn’t decay immediately.

I’m sure it was an accidental discovery like most things are. If they lived in temperature extreme climates they found that food that would have gone bad in a day during the summer was still good after a week of being frozen in the winter.

It’s kind of like asking “Who discovered that fire makes food taste better and makes it easier to eat?” It was probably somebody walking along, foraging for food in the wake of a forest fire, and coming across a burned up bear and chowing down on it or something.

I cannot tell a lie – it was me. I had to put that cake somewhere.