小暑已至 馬上入伏 | 中軸線之夏：古人也能吃到“冰淇淋”？
夏季已至，炎熱的天氣籠罩著整個京城。沿著縱貫南北的北京中軸線兩側，排列著北京皇家文化和市井文化最有代表性的建築和街市，街市兩旁到處都是夏日冰品售賣點。但對於幾百年前沒有空調、冰箱的古人來説，想要在夏日喝上一杯冰鎮飲品，該怎麼辦呢？
It is summertime again. The sweltering heat has seized the entire Beijing city. Along either side of the north-south central axis of Beijing, there is architecture epitomizing the imperial culture, and also street markets emblematic of traditional urban culture. Today the street markets are interspersed with stalls for iced snacks, but for our ancestors centuries ago, who lived without air-conditioning or refrigerators, if they desired cold drink in to beat the summer heat, what would they do?
古代當然也有存放冰的“神秘建築”！清代時北京城內共有18座官窖。故宮內的5座專供皇宮儲冰。城外面的13座，面向高官及皇親貴胄。
The fact is that there were indeed “mysterious structures” for storing ice in ancient times. In the Qing Dynasty, Beijing had a total of 18 official icehouses. Among them, five were inside the Forbidden City and were dedicated for imperial use, the other thirteen were for high officials and nobles.
故宮裏的冰窖全是半地下室，呈南北走向長條狀的拱券式土窯洞工程建築。每座窖底下沉地面以下約1.5米，冰窖東西寬約6.4米，南北長11米多，墻面厚約2米，不設窗，僅在南北兩邊設門。古人的冰窖也有“黑科技”，冰窖地面的石材用的是火山岩石，除了隔熱保溫還具備殺菌功效。
The icehouses inside the Forbidden City are semi-basement elongated cave structures with arch roofs, aligned along a north-south axis. Each of the ice-storing structures sinks 1.5 meters below the ground, measures 6.4 meters from east to west, and 11 meters from north to south. Sealed with walls around two meters think, they have no windows and only doors on the north and south sides. The icehouses also featured “black tech”. Our ancestors used volcanic rocks as interior ground pavement, serving both insulation and sterilizing purposes.
有了存放地，可是冰是從哪來的呢？
Now we have the storing places, but where did the ice come from?
故宮用於食材冷凍或消夏避暑的冰塊，從故宮筒子河、北海及中南海、禦河等處採用；食用的冰塊則是在以上湖河旁挖一個蓄水池，將凈化水結凍後採用。
The ice cubes used in the Forbidden City to freeze food or to cool off the summer heat were mined from the moat around the imperial palace, the Beihai and Zhongnanhai lakes, the Imperial River, and elsewhere; the ice cubes for consumption were collected from frozen purified water in the reservoirs dug next to the above lakes and rivers.
打冰務必在三九天，選擇清亮堅厚的冰塊，切成0.5米厚，每塊凈重約80KG——這個尺寸的冰塊最不易融化。每座冰窖藏冰大約5000塊。
The ice mining would start right after winter solstice, the coldest days in a year. The workers were sent to quarry those clean, solid and thick ice blocks, and cut them into cubes of 0.5 meters, each weighing around 80 kilograms. Ice cubes of this size are the least likely to melt. Each icehouse could store about 5,000 of these cubes.
由於冰來之不易，清朝故宮中每年只有農曆五月到七月的三個月間可以使用冰窖裏的冰，即便是皇帝也要限制用冰時間。
Because the difficulty in production, ice in the Forbidden City was only supplied from the fifth to the seventh month in the lunar calendar every year during the Qing Dynasty. Even the emperor had to abide by this ration.
這些冰放置在宮廷客廳內的景泰藍冰桶裏，冷氣流出，房間內便清涼很多，成為古代的“空調”。還有木頭或青銅制的“冰鑒”，放入冰窖裏的冰，再把食物或飲品放在其間，就能在盛夏時分，吃上涼爽的一口，這就是世界上發現最早的“冰箱”了。
The ice would be put into the cloisonné buckets in the living rooms in the palace, releasing cold air to serve as primitive “air-conditioning”. Wooden or bronze containers called “Bingjian” were also used for freezing food or drink with ice, providing refreshments in the searing heat of summer. These are regarded as the earliest refrigerators of the world.
冰鎮水果、綠豆湯、酸梅湯、杏仁豆腐……在這些傳統的夏日小吃中，最特別的是“酥山”，也就是清朝的冰淇淋！最底層置冰，淋上奶油、酥油，做出山巒的造型，和現在的“綿綿冰”有些相似。
Iced fruits, mung bean soup, sour plum drink, almond tofu… Among all the traditional summer snacks, the most special is Sushan, or dairy hill, which was Qing Dynasty’s ice cream! To make Sushan, ice was put at the bottom as the base, and then flavored and shaped into tiny hills with toppings of melt cheese and butter. It was like a prototype of today’s shaved ice dessert.
目前保留比較完好的知名老冰窖在北京中軸線西側還有三處。故宮現存冰窖，如今已經改造成冰窖餐廳，售賣“脊獸雪糕”等特色文創冷飲，是遊覽故宮時的網紅打卡地。冰窖不再是皇家專屬，讓遊人可以在休憩之時，感受歷史與文化的厚重。今天的中軸線，也不再是皇家居住的中軸線，而是融入到百姓生活中的中軸線。
At present, there are three well-preserved famous icehouses west to the central axis of Beijing. The ones in the Forbidden City have been turned into a special restaurant with in the Palace Museum. It sells ridge beast ice creams and other special creative cold snacks, and has become a must-see place for visitors to the palace. The ice houses are no longer exclusive to the imperial family, but rather where visitors can appreciate the profundity of history and culture while taking a rest. Like wise, Beijing’s central axis is no longer the pivot for the imperial residence, but for the life of common people.
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