THE ZEER POT

I love simple things.  This is one of them.  If located within the ground on the side of a hill (out of the sun) in a rocked chamber, one could see a 45 degree temp in lieu of the 55 degree ground temp, if a simple flue were used to get ground air to move past the pot and up the flue.  Forty five degrees would keep things very nicely refrigerated indefinitely so long as you keep things moist.  This would be great for milk and cheese.  When I was younger, we lived in an old farmhouse built in the 1930's before everyone could afford a fridge.  They had one of these built into the house - but it relied on the cool moist air from the crawl space to keep things cool.  As advanced as an airplane is, some systems in use today still rely on bypassing chilled ambient (at altitude) air to cool the food carts.  Simple, novel and effective.

Here it is:

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZNLPeb3qIhc

Please excuse me while I got to find me some terra cotta pots......