What company first sold the microwave oven?
Microwave oven
Japan's Sharp Corporation began manufacturing microwave ovens in 1961. Between 1964 and 1966, Sharp introduced the first microwave oven with a turntable, a feature that promotes convenient even heating of food. In 1965, Raytheon acquired Amana. In 1967, they introduced the first popular home model, the countertop Radarange, at a price of US$495 ($ in dollars).
Microwave oven
The lower temperature of cooking (the boiling point of water) is a significant safety benefit compared to baking in the oven or frying, because it eliminates the formation of tars and char, which are carcinogenic. Microwave radiation also penetrates deeper than direct heat, so that the food is heated by its own internal water content. In contrast, direct heat can burn the surface while the inside is still cold. Pre-heating the food in a microwave oven before putting it into the grill or pan reduces the time needed to heat up the food and reduces the formation of carcinogenic char. Unlike frying and baking, microwaving does not produce acrylamide in potatoes, however unlike deep-frying, it is of only limited effectiveness in reducing glycoalkaloid (i.e., solanine) levels. Acrylamide has been found in other microwaved products like popcorn.
Microwave oven
The invention of the cavity magnetron made possible the production of electromagnetic waves of a small enough wavelength (microwaves). The magnetron was originally a crucial component in the development of short wavelength radar during World War II. In 1937–1940, a multi-cavity magnetron was built by the British physicist Sir John Turton Randall, FRSE, together with a team of British coworkers, for the British and American military radar installations in World War II. A more high-powered microwave generator that worked at shorter wavelengths was needed, and in 1940, at the University of Birmingham in England, Randall and Harry Boot produced a working prototype. They invented a valve that could spit out pulses of microwave radio energy on a wavelength of 10 cm, an unprecedented discovery.
Microwave oven
Frozen dinners, pies, and microwave popcorn bags often contain a susceptor made from thin aluminium film in the packaging or included on a small paper tray. The metal film absorbs microwave energy efficiently and consequently becomes extremely hot and radiates in the infrared, concentrating the heating of oil for popcorn or even browning surfaces of frozen foods. Heating packages or trays containing susceptors are designed for a single use and are then discarded as waste.
Onida Electronics
Onida was started by G.L. Mirchandani and Vijay Mansukhani in 1981 in Mumbai. G.L. Mirchandani is the chairman and managing director of M/s Mirc Electronics Ltd. He was educated in Colonel Brown Cambridge School and Harvard University. In 1982, Onida started assembling television sets at their factory in Andheri, Mumbai. It was established as "Mirc Electronics" in 1981. Since then, Onida has evolved into a multi-product company in the consumer durables and appliances sector. Onida achieved a 100% growth in ACs and microwave ovens and a 40% growth in washing machines last year.
June (company)
June is a home automation company based in San Francisco. Its first product is the June Intelligent Oven, a computer-based, Wi-Fi-enabled, app-connected countertop convection oven that employs machine learning and computer vision technologies to identify and cook food. The first generation oven was launched in December 2016. June launched its second generation June Oven in August 2018 as the "do-it-all oven" and seven appliances in one - a countertop convection oven, air fryer, slow cooker, dehydrator, broiler, toaster and warming drawer. The oven was created by “a team that brought the iPhone, the Fitbit, the GoPro, and Lyft to market.”
Microwave oven
Food and cookware taken out of a microwave oven are rarely much hotter than . Cookware used in a microwave oven is often much cooler than the food because the cookware is transparent to microwaves; the microwaves heat the food directly and the cookware is indirectly heated by the food. Food and cookware from a conventional oven, on the other hand, are the same temperature as the rest of the oven; a typical cooking temperature is . That means that conventional stoves and ovens can cause more serious burns.
Convection oven
The first oven with a fan to circulate air was invented in 1914 but never launched commercially.
Electrical engineering
In 1920, Albert Hull developed the magnetron which would eventually lead to the development of the microwave oven in 1946 by Percy Spencer. In 1934, the British military began to make strides toward radar (which also uses the magnetron) under the direction of Dr Wimperis, culminating in the operation of the first radar station at Bawdsey in August 1936.
Aroma Housewares
In 1977, Peter Chang founded Aroma Housewares in southern California focusing on ovens. By 1981, Chang had expanded to nine locations across San Diego and Los Angeles counties. Aroma introduced their first electric product in 1988, the Aeromatic Turbo Oven. Aroma added rice cookers in 1992 which became their most popular product. Aroma also offered a portable butane burner, ASP-137, for approximately $30.
Oven
More recently, ovens have become slightly more high-tech in terms of cooking strategy. The microwave as a cooking tool was discovered by Percy Spencer in 1946, and with the help from engineers, the microwave oven was patented. The microwave oven uses microwave radiation to excite the molecules in food causing friction, thus producing heat.In cooking, the conventional oven is a kitchen appliance used for roasting and heating. Foods normally cooked in this manner include meat, casseroles and baked goods such as bread, cake and other desserts. In modern times, the oven is used to cook and heat food in many households across the globe.
Micro Machines
Micro Machines: The Original Scale Miniatures, also called Micro Machines or simply The Micros, are a line of toys originally made by Galoob (now part of Hasbro) in the mid-1980s and throughout the 1990s. Galoob licensed the idea behind Micro Machines from Clemens V. Hedeen, an American toy inventor from Wisconsin. Micro Machines were tiny scale component style "playsets" and vehicles that were slightly larger than N scale. Early Micro Machines television commercials were famous for featuring actor John Moschitta Jr., who was (at the time) listed in the "Guinness Book of World Records" as the world's fastest talker, and holds third place to this day.
Slow cooker
The Naxon Utilities Corporation of Chicago, under the leadership of Irving Naxon, developed the Naxon Beanery All-Purpose Cooker for the purposes of cooking a bean meal. Naxon was inspired by a story his grandmother told about how back in her native Lithuanian town, her mother made a stew called cholent, which took several hours to cook in an oven. A 1950 advertisement shows a slow cooker called the "Simmer Crock" made by the Industrial Radiant Heat Corp. of Gladstone, NJ. The Rival Company from Sedalia, Missouri, bought Naxon in 1970, and consequentially acquired Naxon’s patent for the bean simmer cooker. Rival asked inventor Robert Glen Martin, from Boonville, Missouri, to develop Naxon’s bean cooker into a large scale production model which could cook an entire family meal, going further than just cooking a bean meal. Martin also designed and produced the mass-making machines for Rival’s manufacturing line of the Crock-Pot. The cooker was then reintroduced under the name "Crock-Pot" in 1971. Slow cookers achieved popularity in the US during the 1970s, when many women began to work outside the home. They could start dinner cooking in the morning before going to work and finish preparing the meal in the evening when they came home. In 1974, Rival introduced removable stoneware inserts, making the appliance easier to clean. The brand now belongs to Sunbeam Products, a subsidiary of Jarden Corporation. Other brands of this appliance include Cuisinart, GE, Hamilton Beach, KitchenAid, Magic Chef, West Bend Housewares, and the now defunct American Electric Corporation.
Microwave popcorn
EO technique also has some disadvantages, such as high cost and complexity of setting up and operating an electrochemical cell. Due to these disadvantages, EO has not yet been commercialized.
Some microwave ovens have a specific mode designed for cooking popcorn, which either uses factory-calibrated time and power level settings, or which uses humidity or sound sensors to detect when popping has finished.
Microwave burn
The first microwave oven injury was reported in 1973. Two women operated a microwave oven in a department store snack bar. After several years, the oven showed a malfunction manifesting by burning the food. The first woman noticed burning sensations in her fingers and very little pain or tenderness when nearby to the operating oven. A small lesion appeared on her left index finger, near the base of the fingernail. In the next four weeks, three fingers of her right hand became affected as well. Transverse ridging and deformations close to the nail base appeared on her fingernails. After five months since the initial symptoms, she visited a doctor; the examination found no abnormalities other than the nails. Topical steroid cream used over six weeks led to gradual improvement. The second woman experienced nail deformation at the same time as the first one, with the same clinical findings. The oven was returned to the manufacturer before the involvement of the doctor, and the amount of leakage could not be assessed.
Easy-Bake Oven
After Kenner became a division of Hasbro, which then closed it down, Hasbro continued to produce the oven. The Easy-Bake Oven and Snack Center was introduced in 1993.
U-Line Corporation
U-Line was founded in 1962 by Henry Uihlein who was the first to patent and bring to market an automatic stand-alone undercounter residential ice maker. Based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U-Line has since introduced several other undercounter "firsts," including the first combination refrigerator/ice maker (1971), the first portable ice maker (1971), the first 12v DC marine/mobile ice maker (1983), and the first residential wine refrigeration system (1985).
Marcel Audiffren
European-manufactured refrigerators based on his designs were first sold in the U.S. in 1903. He received U.S. Patents #551,107 (in 1895) and #898,400 (in 1908, with Albert Sigrun). These patents were purchased by C. A. Griscom for his American Audiffren Refrigerating Machine Company. Machines based on Audiffren's sulfur dioxide process were manufactured by General Electric in Fort Wayne, Indiana and marketed by the Johns-Manville company. The first unit was sold in 1911. Audiffren machines were expensive, selling for about $1,000—about twice as much as an automobile cost at the time.
Electric stove
Canadian inventor Thomas Ahearn filed patent number no. 39916 in 1892 for an "Electric Oven," a device he probably employed in preparing a meal for an Ottawa hotel that year. Ahearn and Warren Y. Soper were owners of Ottawa's Chaudiere Electric Light and Power Company. The electric stove was showcased at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893, where an electrified model kitchen was shown. Unlike the gas stove, the electrical stove was slow to catch on, partly due to the unfamiliar technology, and the need for cities and towns to be electrified. By the 1930s, the technology had matured and the electrical stove slowly began to replace the gas stove, especially in household kitchens.
Hot Pockets
Hot Pockets is an American brand of microwaveable turnovers and a pocket burrito generally containing one or more types of cheese, meat, or vegetables. Hot Pockets was founded by the Chef America Inc. company. Since April 20, 2002, they have been produced by Nestlé.
Kenwood Chef
The Kenwood Chef is a food mixer developed by Ken Wood in Britain. It is a single machine with a number of attachments that allow it to perform many functions. The Chef, based on the earlier A200, was introduced in 1950. Kenwood mixers, along with most other Kenwood products were originally manufactured in the UK by Kenwood Limited (not to be confused with the Japanese Kenwood Corporation which manufactures audio equipment). Through globalisation and changes of ownership, eventually production of all products except the Chef and Major mixers were transferred overseas; but even the mixers are all now made in China rather than in Havant. The Chef Mixer was an instant success in the UK and is still Kenwood's top seller . Kenwood Ltd has been owned by the Italian company De'Longhi since 2001.
Galanz
Production started slowly with only 10,000 microwaves produced the first year, but expanded rapidly after that. In addition to microwave ovens, the company has recently begun producing air conditioners. (sometime prior to 2006)
It is headquartered in Shunde District, Foshan, Guangdong. It has an additional base in Huangpu Town, Zhongshan, also in Guangdong, and a North American office in Naperville, Illinois.
Percy Spencer
One day while building magnetrons, Spencer was standing in front of an active radar set when he noticed the candy bar he had in his pocket had melted. Spencer was not the first to notice this phenomenon, but he was the first to investigate it. He decided to experiment using food, including popcorn kernels, which became the world’s first microwaved popcorn. In another experiment, an egg was placed in a tea kettle, and the magnetron was placed directly above it. The result was the egg exploding in the face of one of his co-workers, who was looking in the kettle to observe. Spencer then created the first true microwave oven by attaching a high density electromagnetic field generator to an enclosed metal box. The magnetron emitted microwaves into the metal box blocking any escape, allowing for controlled and safe experimentation. He then placed various food items in the box, while observing effects and monitoring temperatures.
Microwave oven
Adoption has been slower in less-developed countries, as households with disposable income concentrate on more important household appliances like refrigerators and ovens. In India, for example, only about 5% of households owned a microwave in 2013, well behind refrigerators at 31% ownership. However, microwave ovens are gaining popularity. In Russia, for example, the number of households with a microwave grew from almost 24% in 2002 to almost 40% in 2008. Almost twice as many households in South Africa owned microwaves in 2008 (38.7%) as in 2002 (19.8%). Microwave ownership in Vietnam was at 16% of households in 2008—versus 30% ownership of refrigerators; this rate was up significantly from 6.7% microwave ownership in 2002, with 14% ownership for refrigerators that year.
Watkins-Johnson Company
Watkins-Johnson Company was a designer and manufacturer of electronic devices, systems, and equipment. The company, commonly referred to as "W-J", was formed in 1957 by Dean A. Watkins and H. Richard Johnson, and was headquartered in Palo Alto, California. Its products included microwave tubes, followed by solid-state microwave devices, electronic warfare subsystems and systems, receiving equipment, antennas, furnaces and semiconductor manufacturing equipment, and automated test equipment.
Motorola
In 1974, Motorola introduced its first microprocessor, the 8-bit MC6800, used in automotive, computing and video game applications. That same year, Motorola sold its television business to the Japan-based Matsushita, the parent company of Panasonic.
Wonder Pot
The Wonder Pot retained its popularity through the 1970s, especially among new immigrants who did not have ovens. During its heyday, the Wonder Pot spawned its own bestselling cookbook. The introduction of the microwave oven and a national desire to dissociate with the austerity mentality put an end to its widespread use. However, the Wonder Pot is still used by Israeli Haredi families for baking kugels, and it is also popular in this sector on the holiday of Passover for those who do not have a kosher-for-Passover oven.
Manwich
"Manwich Heat & Serve" was introduced in 2004. It contains both the seasoned tomato sauce and ground beef in a microwavable bowl.
Microwave oven
A microwave oven (also commonly referred to as a microwave) is an electric oven that heats and cooks food by exposing it to electromagnetic radiation in the microwave frequency range. This induces polar molecules in the food to rotate and produce thermal energy in a process known as dielectric heating. Microwave ovens heat foods quickly and efficiently because excitation is fairly uniform in the outer of a homogeneous, high water content food item; food is more evenly heated throughout than generally occurs in other cooking techniques.
Heinz
In June 2009, a company PR stunt announced they had introduced the prototype of the world's smallest, portable microwave, the "Beanzawave". The microwave was to appeal to office workers and students and can be powered by a computer via a USB port. The microwave may be used to heat up coffee or tea, or small food items. It is also good for heating up Heinz's hot snack line, Snap Pots, for which it was designed. The prototype was designed by microwave expert, Gordon Andrews and industrial designer, Stephen Frazer.
Dielectric heating
Microwave heating, as distinct from RF heating, is a sub-category of dielectric heating at frequencies above 100 MHz, where an electromagnetic wave can be launched from a small dimension emitter and guided through space to the target. Modern microwave ovens make use of electromagnetic waves with electric fields of much higher frequency and shorter wavelength than RF heaters. Typical domestic microwave ovens operate at 2.45 GHz, but 915 MHz ovens also exist. This means that the wavelengths employed in microwave heating are 0.1 cm to 10 cm. This provides for highly efficient, but less penetrative, dielectric heating.
Oven
In the early part of the 19th century, coal ovens were developed. Its shape was cylindrical and was made of heavy cast-iron. The gas oven saw its first use as early as the beginning of the 19th century as well. Gas stoves became very common household ovens once gas lines were available to most houses and neighborhoods. James Sharp patented one of the first gas stoves in 1826. Other various improvements to the gas stove included the AGA cooker invented in 1922 by Gustaf Dalén. The first electric ovens were invented in the very late 19th century, however, like many electrical inventions destined for commercial use, mass ownership of electrical ovens could not be a reality until better and more efficient use of electricity was available.
Raytheon
In 1965, it acquired Amana Refrigeration, Inc., a manufacturer of refrigerators and air conditioners. Using the Amana brand name and its distribution channels, Raytheon began selling the first countertop household microwave oven in 1967 and became a dominant manufacturer in the microwave oven business.
Partridge Wilson Engineering
In February 1937, they produced what they claimed was the first all-electric mobile fish-and-chips saloon. Beneath a serving counter was an oven, which was fitted with two sets of electric elements. One set could be plugged into a mains electrical socket, and was used to bring the oven up to temperature. Once it was hot, the second set were powered from the vehicle's battery, but the amount of current drawn was somewhat lower, as it only had to maintain the temperature. Two months later, they showcased a mobile milk bar, complete with egg-whisking machines, fountains and a refrigerator, again powered from the vehicle battery. A milk tank held of milk. Later in the year they held a competition for ideas to improve or develop their products. Prizes of 10, 5 and 3 guineas were offered.
List of 2.4 GHz radio use
The IEEE 802.11 committee that developed the Wi-Fi specification conducted an extensive investigation into the interference potential of microwave ovens. A typical microwave oven uses a self-oscillating vacuum power tube called a magnetron and a high voltage power supply with a half wave rectifier (often with voltage doubling) and no DC filtering. This produces an RF pulse train with a duty cycle below 50% as the tube is completely off for half of every AC mains cycle: 8.33 ms in 60 Hz countries and 10 ms in 50 Hz countries.
CorningWare
Corning Ware, also written CorningWare, was originally a brand name for a unique glass-ceramic (Pyroceram) cookware resistant to thermal shock. It was first introduced in 1958 by Corning Glass Works in the United States. The brand was later spun off with the sale of the Corning Consumer Products Company subsidiary (now known as Corelle Brands of Rosemont, Illinois). Glass-ceramic based Corning Ware can be taken from the refrigerator or freezer and used directly on the stovetop, in an oven or microwave, under a broiler, for table / serving use, and when ready for cleaning put directly into a dishwasher. CorningWare is sold worldwide, and it is popular in North America, Asia, and Australia.
Toastmaster (appliances)
From 1929 until 1980, the brand was owned by McGraw Electric, renamed to McGraw-Edison in 1957. Following a leveraged buyout in 1980 to Magic Chef, the brand changed hands several times and finally went public in 1992 as Toastmaster, Inc. The company, headquartered in Boonville, Missouri, United States, was acquired by Salton, Inc., in 1999. After a series of acquisitions, the brand is now owned by Spectrum Brands, Inc. and is licensed to Select Brands, Inc. Commercial Toastmaster products for the food-service industry are manufactured by The Middleby Corporation. 
Company headquarters were moved from Boonville, Missouri to Columbia, Missouri during the 1970s. Factories were located in Boonville, Missouri, Macon, Missouri, Moberly, Missouri, Kirksville, Missouri, Clarence, Missouri and Laurinburg, North Carolina. Three large warehouse facilities were operated in Columbia, Missouri, too. Product brands included Toastmaster, Manning-Bowman, Edison, Everhot, Bersted, Eskimo fans, Zero fans, Ingram clocks and timers and several others. The Vita-Mix blender was also built under contract with Vita-Mix. Products manufactured during the 1970 and 1980 decades were toasters, griddles, box fans, waffle bakers, sandwich makers, ceiling fans, toaster ovens, convection ovens, bread makers, humidifiers, clocks, timers, etc. Other products marketed by the company in the 1970 and 1980 decades were imported from oversea factories such as mixers, meat slicers, can openers, microwave ovens, oscillating fans, etc. Revenues from a sandwich maker known as the Snackster (originally sold exclusively to Walmart) were significant and lead to the company going public on NYSE in 1992.
Microwave popcorn
Microwave popcorn is a convenience food consisting of unpopped popcorn in an enhanced, sealed paper bag intended to be heated in a microwave oven. In addition to the dried corn, the bags typically contain cooking oil with sufficient saturated fat to solidify at room temperature, one or more seasonings (often salt), and natural or artificial flavorings or both. With the many different flavors, there are many different providers.
Aaron L. Brody
Brody started his career, while in school, in food technology with the Birdseye Fisheries Lab Division of General Foods in 1951 as a team member in the development of the first frozen precooked foods including fish sticks. While a graduate student, he worked part-time for Raytheon Manufacturing Company where he was a member of a team that developed the first microwave oven, leading to microwave cooking, heating, and browning of foods. After he earned his graduate degree, Brody worked for the Whirlpool Corporation in Benton Harbor, Michigan. He led the development of modified atmosphere packaging (MAP), invented an odor control system for refrigerators, a thermoelectric refrigerator/freezer, the Total Environmental Control “Tectrol” controlled atmosphere process for food preservation, a progenitor of MAP fresh-cut vegetables, and radiation pasteurization of foods. While at Whirlpool, he invented and patented an apparatus and method of storing perishable animal and plant materials, as well as non-food materials.
Philip Kives
In 1961, Kives traveled to New York City where he worked at Macy’s Department Store doing floor demonstrations of a new "revolutionary" product: the non-stick Teflon frying pan. He returned to Canada and made the first of many deals with Eaton’s Department Store in Canada: he offered to pay for television advertising of the frying pan, if Eaton’s agreed to stock it. Many pans were sold, but the product itself was a failure because after a time the Teflon coating came off during cooking. Kives' marketing formula consisted of live two-and-a-half minute TV commercials, in which he recreated the fast talking "hard sell" he had developed in the United State. He is often credited with creating what would come to be known as the "infomercial". The success of this formula led Kives to set up his own company, K-Tel.
Microwave burn
Also, there have been three alleged infant deaths caused by microwave ovens. In all these cases, the babies were placed within microwaves and died of subsequent injuries.
Merage family
David and Paul Merage co-founded Chef America Inc. where they created the popular microwavable snack, Hot Pockets, in the early 1980s. The brothers later sold the Chef America Inc. company to Nestlé for $2.6 billion. Hot Pockets were manufactured in Englewood, Colorado, Chef America's former headquarters, until moving its business to the rest of Nestlé's frozen business in Solon, Ohio.
Anova Culinary
Anova Culinary (known legally as Anova Applied Electronics, Inc.) is a San Francisco-based smart kitchen company that provides connected precision cooking appliances, such as a sous vide device for the home cook in 2013 with the Anova One. In 2014, the firm introduced the first connected precision cooking device with the Bluetooth-enabled Anova Precision Cooker, followed by a Wi-Fi-enabled version in 2015 .
TV dinner
Several smaller companies had conceived of frozen dinners earlier (see Invention section below), but the first to achieve success was Swanson. The first Swanson-brand TV Dinner was produced in the United States and consisted of a Thanksgiving meal of turkey, cornbread dressing, frozen peas and sweet potatoes packaged in a tray like those used at the time for airline food service. Each item was placed in its own compartment. The trays proved to be useful: the entire dinner could be removed from the outer packaging as a unit, the tray with its aluminum foil covering could be heated directly in the oven without any extra dishes, and one could eat the meal directly from the tray. The product was cooked for 25 minutes at and fit nicely on a TV tray table. The original TV Dinner sold for 98 cents, and had a production estimate of 5,000 dinners for the first year.
Wireless microphone
The first recorded patent for a wireless microphone was filed by Raymond A. Litke, an American electrical engineer with Educational Media Resources and San Jose State College, who invented a wireless microphone in 1957 to meet the multimedia needs for television, radio, and classroom instruction. His U.S. patent number 3134074 was granted in May 1964. Two microphone types were made available for purchase in 1959: hand-held and lavalier. The main transmitter module was a cigar-sized device which weighed . Vega Electronics Corporation manufactured the design in 1959, producing it as a product called the Vega-Mike. The device was first used by the broadcast media at the 1960 Democratic and Republican National Conventions. It allowed television reporters to roam the floor of the convention to interview participants, including presidential candidates John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon.
Microwave oven
Microwave ovens, although shielded for safety purposes, still emit low levels of microwave radiation. This is not harmful to humans, but can sometimes cause interference to Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and other devices that communicate on the 2.45 GHz wavebands; particularly at close range.
Microwave oven
A variant of the conventional microwave is the convection microwave. A convection microwave oven is a combination of a standard microwave and a convection oven. It allows food to be cooked quickly, yet come out browned or crisped, as from a convection oven. Convection microwaves are more expensive than conventional microwave ovens. Some convection microwaves—those with exposed heating elements—can produce smoke and burning odors as food spatter from earlier microwave-only use is burned off the heating elements.
Microwave oven
In 2000, some manufacturers began offering high power quartz halogen bulbs to their convection microwave models, marketing them under names such as "Speedcook", "Advantium", "Lightwave" and "Optimawave" to emphasize their ability to cook food rapidly and with good browning. The bulbs heat the food's surface with infrared (IR) radiation, browning surfaces as in a conventional oven. The food browns while also being heated by the microwave radiation and heated through conduction through contact with heated air. The IR energy which is delivered to the outer surface of food by the lamps is sufficient to initiate browning caramelization in foods primarily made up of carbohydrates and Maillard reactions in foods primarily made up of protein. These reactions in food produce a texture and taste similar to that typically expected of conventional oven cooking rather than the bland boiled and steamed taste that microwave-only cooking tends to create.
Percy Spencer
Percy Lebaron Spencer (July 19, 1894 – September 8, 1970) was an American physicist and inventor. He became known as the inventor of the microwave oven.
List of popcorn brands
Microwave popcorn is unpopped popcorn in an enhanced, sealed paper bag intended to be heated in a microwave oven. In addition to the dried corn the bags typically contain solidified cooking oil, one or more seasonings (often salt), and natural or artificial flavorings, or both. With the many different flavors, there are many different manufacturers.
Susceptor
Among the first microwave susceptors marketed were those from the mid-1980s in a product called McCain Micro Chips by McCain Foods. It consisted of a susceptor sheet which cooked French fries in a microwave oven. These are currently used in several types of packaging for heating and cooking products in microwave ovens. Care in package design and use is needed for proper food safety.
Chef America Inc.
Chef America Inc. was the former manufacturer of the popular microwavable snack, Hot Pockets. Chef America is a former closely held corporation, which was formed in the late 1970s by two brothers, Paul and David Merage, of Colorado. Chef America introduced Hot Pockets in the early 1980s. Nestlé acquired the corporation in 2002 for the amount of $2.6 billion. Hot Pockets continued to be manufactured in Englewood, Colorado, Chef America's former headquarters, until 2013, when the corporate headquarters was merged with Nestlé's frozen food corporate office in Solon, Ohio. As of 2016, all Hot Pockets are now produced in Mount Sterling, Kentucky.
Sandwich
It has been suggested that UK's first pre-made packaged sandwiches were sold by Marks & Spencer in 1980. As they proved wildly popular, a small experiment involving five stores rapidly grew to cover more than one hundred stores. Within a year, the store was looking for ways to manufacture sandwiches at an industrial scale.
However, the first pre-packed sandwiches date from well before this. British Home Stores sold pre-packed sandwiches in the 1960s (see the Radio Times 3 November 2018 p.167), and earlier even than that, Marks and Spencer (Brighton branch) began selling them in the 1950s, and then in the 1960s in the Oxford Street branch, London. (See the Radio Times 10 November 2018 p.160)
Microwave oven
Studies have investigated the use of the microwave to clean non-metallic domestic sponges which have been thoroughly wetted. A 2006 study found that microwaving wet sponges for two minutes (at 1000 watt power) removed 99% of coliforms, "E. coli" and MS2 phages. "Bacillus cereus" spores were killed at four minutes of microwaving.
Solvay Process Company
The Hazard family invested in an affiliated business, the Semet-Solvay Company, formed in 1895. Louis Semet, a relative of Ernest and Alfred Solvay, had developed with the brothers a coke oven designed to recover valuable materials formerly wasted in the coking process. In 1892 the Solvay Process Company built the first of the ovens in America, forming the Semet-Solvay Company three years later to build and operate them. Coke plants were located in Ashland, Kentucky; Buffalo, New York; Detroit, Michigan; and Ironton, Ohio. Semet-Solvay operated its own mines in West Virginia, providing much of its coal supply.
KitchenAid
The first machine to carry the KitchenAid name was the ten-quart C-10 model, introduced in 1918 and built at Hobart's "Troy Metal Products" subsidiary in Springfield, Ohio. Prototype models were given to the wives of factory executives, and the product was named when one stated "I don't care what you call it, but I know it's the best kitchen aid I've ever had!" They were initially marketed to the farmhouse kitchen and were available in hardware stores. But owing to
the difficulty in convincing retailers to take up the product, the company recruited a mostly female sales force, which sold the mixers door-to-door. The C-10 machine was also marketed heavily toward soda fountains and small commercial kitchens, and was also sold under the "FountainAid" and "BakersAid" model names.
In 1922, KitchenAid introduced the H-5 mixer as its new home-use offering. The H-5 mixer was smaller and lighter than the C-10, and had a more manageable five-quart bowl. The model "G" mixer, about half the weight of the "H-5" was released in August 1928. In the 1920s, several other companies introduced similar mixers, and the Sunbeam Mixmaster became the most popular among consumers until the 1950s.
Microwave oven
Uneven heating in microwaved food can be partly due to the uneven distribution of microwave energy inside the oven, and partly due to the different rates of energy absorption in different parts of the food. The first problem is reduced by a stirrer, a type of fan that reflects microwave energy to different parts of the oven as it rotates, or by a turntable or carousel that turns the food; turntables, however, may still leave spots, such as the center of the oven, which receive uneven energy distribution. The location of dead spots and hot spots in a microwave can be mapped out by placing a damp piece of thermal paper in the oven. When the water saturated paper is subjected to the microwave radiation it becomes hot enough to cause the dye to be released which will provide a visual representation of the microwaves. If multiple layers of paper are constructed in the oven with a sufficient distance between them a three-dimensional map can be created. Many store receipts are printed on thermal paper which allows this to be easily done at home.
Revere Ware
Prior to the sale of Revere Ware to Corning Glass Inc in 1985, the brand offered or had in development four series. The traditional 1400 series continued to sell well. The newly developed 2000 line, for use on the then-new 1980s technology of ceramic- and glass-top stoves, featured heavy aluminum bottoms for good heat transfer. Both the ONXY line and the Micro-Fryer line were released after the sale, but were discontinued almost immediately as they were perceived as being in direct competition with existing products from subsidiaries of Corning.The first series developed and introduced after the Corning Glass inc acquisition was the Proline, a heavy gauge stainless steel product that would go through many arbitrary, minor changes during its run. Minor changes would happen frequently across all their lines, undermining consumer confidence. The Vista series was a reintroduction of the 1400 series, again with minor changes and now sold with glass lids taken from other Corning product lines. The Spectrum series featured aluminum non-stick pans with colored enamel bodies, and were imported from Thailand. only four years after the Vista Line hit store shelves, the Centura series was yet another reintroduction of the traditional 1400 line. The Centura series sold with less expensive materials, being made overseas, and were offered exclusively from Wal-Mart. Most other series introduced were contemporaries of other lines from Corning subsidiaries.
Galanz
Founded in 1978 by Liang Qingde, Galanz was originally a company that dealt in the trading of duck feathers. In 1993, Galanz made a deal with Toshiba for producing OEM Toshiba-branded microwave ovens, which Galanz later purchased the appliance division from Toshiba, in return for Toshiba holding a 5% stake. Over the years, Galanz has expanded its product line to include air conditioners, washing machines, toaster ovens, refrigerators and other home appliances. The company currently has production bases in Zhongshan City and Shunde District of Foshan City and employs over 50,000 people.
Easy-Bake Oven
The Easy-Bake Oven is a working toy oven which Kenner introduced in 1963, and which Hasbro still manufactured as of late April 2016. The original toy used an ordinary incandescent light bulb as a heat source; current versions use a true heating element. Kenner sold 500,000 Easy-Bake Ovens in the first year of production. By 1997, more than 16 million Easy-Bake Ovens (in 11 models) had been sold.
Microwave oven
Microwave ovens heat food without getting hot themselves. Taking a pot off a stove, unless it is an induction cooktop, leaves a potentially dangerous heating element or trivet that will stay hot for some time. Likewise, when taking a casserole out of a conventional oven, one's arms are exposed to the very hot walls of the oven. A microwave oven does not pose this problem.
Microwave Massacre
Donald (Vernon) is a construction worker with a big problem: his shrew of a wife May (Claire Ginsberg) has started to only cook gourmet foods in a Hyacinth Bucket-style misguided effort to make themselves seem classier than they are. While his friends Roosevelt (Loren Schein) and Phillip (Al Troupe) dine on simple bologna-and-cheese sandwiches for lunch, Donald is saddled with crab sandwiches and other cooking atrocities. To his horror, he discovers his wife has bought an unusually large Major Electric microwave oven, which makes the meals worse in half the time.
Veg-O-Matic
Veg-O-Matic is the name of one of the first food-processing appliances to gain widespread use in the United States. It was non-electric and invented by Samuel J. Popeil and later sold by his son, Ron Popeil along with more than 20 other distributors across the country, and Ronco, making its début in 1963 at the International Housewares Show in Chicago, Illinois. It was also sold in Australia by Philip Kives, who purchased it from Samuel Popeil and sold it as one of the first products through his own marketing firm, K-tel.
Thelma Pressman
Thelma Pressman (10 April 1921 – 10 August 2010, Rancho Mirage, California) was a pioneering microwave cooking consultant, product development consultant, and cookbook author. In 1969 she opened the first microwave cooking school in the United States. She was the author of several microwave cookbooks and was a regular columnist for "Bon Appétit" magazine from 1978 to 1982. After her retirement to the Palm Springs area, she was a founder of the Palm Springs Chapter of Les Dames d'Escoffier International and led restaurant tours throughout the Coachella Valley. She was often called "the Julia Child of microwave cooking".
Xinu
The first successful port of embedded Xinu was in 1994, when it was implemented in a Kenmore model 728858 microwave oven produced in the year 1990.
Pilot (30 Rock)
The Trivection oven was a convection microwave created by General Electric. At the time of broadcast, General Electric was the parent company for NBC, which produced and broadcast "30 Rock". During the episode, Jack Donaghy describes the product, claiming to have invented it himself and pegging it as his "greatest triumph" after years and years of market research. Donaghy's description of the product was taken near verbatim from GE’s website. He later uses the oven as a metaphor for "The Girlie Show", saying that Tracy Jordan is the "third heat".
Hamburger
In recent years Rustlers has sold pre-cooked hamburgers reheatable in a microwave oven in the United Kingdom.
Trivection oven
The Trivection oven is a convection microwave created by General Electric, which combines radiant heat, convection, and microwaves for customized cooking. According to GE, it cooks food five times faster than a traditional oven. Alton Brown, host of "Good Eats", was involved in developing the oven.
Microwave burn
Household microwave ovens have shielding around the inside of the oven that prevents microwaves from leaking out, as well as safety interlocks that prevent the oven from operating when the door is open. Therefore, burns due to direct exposure to microwave energy (as opposed to touching hot food) should not occur under normal circumstances.
Swanson
When Swanson's TV dinners launched in the 1950s, the product competed primarily with home-cooked food, and was developed with a relatively low price point for the consumer. By the 1970s, however, the increasing number of two-income families and single working parents shifted competition to restaurant food, either eaten at the restaurant or ordered to take home. During this period, American consumers were increasingly exposed to a greater variety of international cuisines and more sophisticated flavors, and the consumer was also growing more nutrition-conscious and discerning. Competing in this new environment required more expensive ingredients, but Swanson was slow to change its traditional menus, and slow to recognize the increasing importance of the microwave oven in the heat-and-eat food market. It continued to use non-microwaveable foil trays long after competitors had adopted microwaveable paper and plastic trays. Swanson eventually introduced a new line of frozen dinners called "Le Menu" in the 1980s which featured more sophisticated menus on undivided plastic microwavable plates with lids. But by then, the company was competing with many other strong brands, such as Stouffer's. Stouffer's had also begun targeting the diet market with it reduced-calorie Lean Cuisine frozen meal line. Swanson trailed behind these developments.
Microwave oven
The cooking chamber is similar to a Faraday cage to prevent the waves from coming out of the oven. Even though there is no continuous metal-to-metal contact around the rim of the door, choke connections on the door edges act like metal-to-metal contact, at the frequency of the microwaves, to prevent leakage. The oven door usually has a window for easy viewing, with a layer of conductive mesh some distance from the outer panel to maintain the shielding. Because the size of the perforations in the mesh is much less than the microwaves' wavelength (12.2 cm for the usual 2.45 GHz), microwave radiation cannot pass through the door, while visible light (with its much shorter wavelength) can.
Neff GmbH
In 1957, it introduced the first microwave oven. In 1957, it introduced the first induction cooker (hob) in Europe, marketing it under the revolutionary slogan of "Kochen auf der kalten Platte" (cook on a cold surface). In 1961 it introduced the first integrated cooker units in Europe, built into other kitchen units - the built-in oven. Also in the same year they began selling larger microwave cookers for commercial (catering) uses. By 1970 it was branching out into providing for the full range of units to make up a fitted kitchen. By the early 1970s the cookers were among the first to be controlled with a digital clock.
Dennis P.
Dennis P. bought a microwave oven and brought it into the office pretending that this was done to take it home later. After leaving the office he came back later in the evening pretending to take home the microwave oven after having forgotten it earlier. Instead, he emptied the box and filled it with diamonds, and simply walked out with it.
Neff GmbH
In 1971 it introduced its "Circotherm" system whereby hot air was circulated around the oven to allow a distribution of cooking with more regularity. These cookers are known as convection oven or fan ovens, and are still for a specialist market. The Circotherm system was patented by the company, marketed under the slogan "Rundum-Hitze ist mehr" (all around heat is more). In 1985, the convection oven system was first introduced for gas ovens.
Microwave oven
Microwave ovens have limited roles in professional cooking, because the boiling-range temperatures of a microwave will not produce the flavorful chemical reactions that frying, browning, or baking at a higher temperature will. However, additional heat sources can be added to microwave ovens.
Kenwood Chef
Ken Wood began trading as Woodlau Industries Ltd in 1947. His aim was to produce luxury items that would quickly be seen as necessities. He began marketing a toaster and a food mixer with two beaters. The original mixer marketed as "The Kenwood Electric Food Mixer", designed in 1947 was very similar (possibly too similar) to the Sunbeam Mixmaster Model 3, an American mixer made between 1936 and 1939, and he faced serious competition and possibly objection. He completely redesigned the mixer, which was then launched at the Ideal Home Exhibition in London in March 1950. This mixer was no longer just a mixer, as he had added several other functions, and so he called it the Kenwood Electric Chef. It sold for £19 10s. 10d. (£19.54).
Magic Chef
Quick Meal manufactured the stoves, with Ringen Stove handling sales and distribution of the entire output of Quick Meal's production. The phenomenal growth of these two companies during the 1880s and 1890s led to the merger of eight other stove companies in St. Louis, Chicago and Cleveland in 1901 to form the American Stove Company. American Stove introduced the first oven temperature control device in 1914.
Advantium
Advantium is a line of fast-cooking electric ovens for household use sold by General Electric. They use both halogen lamps and microwave energy, either separately or together.
Jenn-Air
The original Jenn-Air Products Company was founded by Louis J. Jenn in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1947, later becoming simply Jenn-Air. In the early years, the company was focused on manufacturing and marketing of industrial fans for use in a variety of commercial and industrial applications. In 1961, Jenn-Air's integration of one of these fans to a cook-top range led to the invention of the first self-ventilated downdraft range. The company expanded its product line to include many other kitchen appliances including microwave ovens, refrigerators, dishwashers, and small appliances such as mixers and blenders. Unfortunately Jenn Air quality control has suffered over time. Their glass cook tops consistently degrade (under the surface), oftentimes with only a few months of normal usage. No amount of cleaning or buffing will remedy the problem. As a result, customer demand has plummeted.
Grabit (cookware)
Grab-Its are microwave-safe cookware easily identifiable by their tab handle. They were introduced by Corning Glass Works in 1977, under the Corning Ware brand and are now sold in a slightly different form by Corelle Brands. Grab-Its are notable as being among the first cookware specifically designed for microwave use - their design was recognized by the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum. Grab-Its strongly resemble porringers.
Amana Corporation
In 1954, it began making air conditioners. Amana was acquired in 1965 by Raytheon, which had invented the microwave oven in 1947, and introduced the commercial "Radarange" Model 1611 in 1954. In 1967, Amana introduced a consumer model of the "Radarange", the first popular microwave designed for home use.
Microwave
The ability of short waves to quickly heat materials and cook food had been investigated in the 1930s by I. F. Mouromtseff at Westinghouse, and at the 1933 Chicago World's Fair demonstrated cooking meals with a 60 MHz radio transmitter. In 1945 Percy Spencer, an engineer working on radar at Raytheon, noticed that microwave radiation from a magnetron oscillator melted a candy bar in his pocket. He investigated cooking with microwaves and invented the microwave oven, consisting of a magnetron feeding microwaves into a closed metal cavity containing food, which was patented by Raytheon on 8 October 1945. Due to their expense microwave ovens were initially used in institutional kitchens, but by 1986 roughly 25% of households in the U.S. owned one. Microwave heating became widely used as an industrial process in industries such as plastics fabrication, and as a medical therapy to kill cancer cells in microwave hyperthermy.
Microwave oven
The radiation produced by a microwave oven is non-ionizing. It therefore does not have the cancer risks associated with ionizing radiation such as X-rays and high-energy particles. Long-term rodent studies to assess cancer risk have so far failed to identify any carcinogenicity from microwave radiation even with chronic exposure levels (i.e. large fraction of life span) far larger than humans are likely to encounter from any leaking ovens. However, with the oven door open, the radiation may cause damage by heating. Every microwave oven sold has a protective interlock so that it cannot be run when the door is open or improperly latched.
Tiny but Mighty Popcorn
As of 2013, the popcorn was available in most Fareway and Hy-Vee stores, as well as approximately 40 Whole Foods stores in the midwestern and eastern United States. A ready-to-eat version of the company's popcorn had also been launched by that time, and a deal had been signed with national distributor KeHE, allowing for access to 30,000 U.S. grocery stores. A microwavable version of the company's popcorn was introduced in October 2014, at which point pre-popped flavored corn was also available, including white cheddar.
Act II (popcorn)
Act II is a brand of microwave popcorn in North America that is ostensibly based on the look and taste of movie theater popcorn. It is currently made and distributed by Conagra Brands. Act II was preceded in the popcorn market by Act I, an early microwave popcorn that had to be stored in the refrigerator due its real butter content. Act I was introduced in 1981. In 1984, Act II, a shelf stable microwave popcorn was released, becoming the first mass-marketed microwave popcorn.
Galanz
Guangdong Galanz Group Co.,Ltd. () is a Chinese manufacturer of electronic home appliances, headquartered in Foshan, Guangdong. It is the largest microwave oven manufacturer in the world, producing one in every two microwave ovens. In 2014 "China Daily" ranked it as #8 of the top ten home appliance makers in China.
Micro Center
Micro Center was the first retailer in the United States to sell the DJI Mavic Pro drone, launching it by hosting a three-day demonstration in their Columbus store's parking lot which was open to the press and the public.
Microwave
The traveling wave tube (TWT) developed in 1943 by Rudolph Kompfner and John Pierce provided a high-power tunable source of microwaves up to 50 GHz, and became the most widely used microwave tube (besides the ubiquitous magnetron used in microwave ovens). The gyrotron tube family developed in Russia could produce megawatts of power up into millimeter wave frequencies, and is used in industrial heating and plasma research, and to power particle accelerators and nuclear fusion reactors.
Jacob Bromwell (company)
Jacob Bromwell is a privately held American designer, manufacturer, marketer and distributor of kitchenware and household goods. Founded in 1819, it is the oldest housewares company in the United States. The company manufactures several historically significant products including the Original Popcorn Popper, Classic Tin Cup, and Legendary Flour Sifter. The Original Popcorn Popper is one of the company's oldest and best-selling items, and has been made with the original equipment and dies since the late 1800s, when the company acquired the patent from William Wood, its inventor. They were originally sold at a wholesale price of $3.50 for a gross. The Legendary Flour Sifter was patented in 1930 by a descendant of Jacob Bromwell's, Thomas G. Melish.
Microwave
In 1894, Oliver Lodge and Augusto Righi generated 1.5 and 12 GHz microwaves respectively with small metal ball spark resonators. The same year Indian physicist Jagadish Chandra Bose was the first person to produce millimeter waves, generating 60 GHz (5 millimeter) microwaves using a 3 mm metal ball spark oscillator. Bose also invented waveguide and horn antennas for use in his experiments. Russian physicist Pyotr Lebedev in 1895 generated 50 GHz millimeter waves. In 1897 Lord Rayleigh solved the mathematical boundary-value problem of electromagnetic waves propagating through conducting tubes and dielectric rods of arbitrary shape. which gave the modes and cutoff frequency of microwaves propagating through a waveguide.
Food processor
One of the first electric food processors was the Starmix, introduced by German company Electrostar in 1946. Although the basic unit resembled a simple blender, numerous accessories were available, including attachments for slicing bread, milk centrifuges and ice cream bowls. In a time when electric motors were expensive, they also developed the piccolo, where the food processor's base unit could drive a vacuum cleaner. In the 1960s, Albrecht von Goertz designed the Starmix MX3 food processor. Although the entire company was rebranded as Starmix in 1968 following the success of the processors, they later focused on vacuum cleaners and electric hand-dryers and the last mixer was produced around the year 2000. 
In France, the concept of a machine to process food began when a catering company salesman, Pierre Verdun, observed the large amount of time his clients spent in the kitchen chopping, shredding and mixing. He produced a simple but effective solution, a bowl with a revolving blade in the base. In 1960, this evolved into Robot-Coupe, a company established to manufacture commercial "food processors" for the catering industry. In the late 1960s, a commercial food processor driven by a powerful commercial induction motor was produced. Robot-Coupe's Magimix food processor arrived from France in the UK in 1974, beginning with the Model 1800. Then, a UK company Kenwood Limited started their own first Kenwood Food Processor, 'processor de- luxe,' in 1979.
Microwave oven
By 1972, Litton (Litton Atherton Division, Minneapolis) introduced two new microwave ovens, priced at $349 and $399, to tap into the market estimated at $750 million by 1976, according to Robert I Bruder, president of the division.
From the late 1970s, Japanese companies such as Sharp Corporation manufactured low-cost microwave ovens that were affordable for residential use, leading to the rapid expansion of the microwave oven market in the 1980s. After Japanese dominance for much of the 1980s, with Sharp as market leader, South Korean manufacturers began entering the market in the late 1980s, with Samsung becoming a major microwave manufacturer.
TrueCookPlus
TrueCookPlus is a microwave oven operating system developed and patented by Microwave Science JV LLC. TrueCookPlus is endorsed by the National Frozen & Refrigerated Foods Association on behalf of over 1300 US frozen food industry member companies.
Bill Daniels
Daniels took a chance on this long-distance television market by setting up a microwave feed that delivered Denver programming to Casper, Wyoming in 1952. It was the first broadcast signal sent by microwave feed. His television feed had only one channel and polled his viewers every 90 days on what they preferred to watch.
Easy-Bake Oven
Despite the retrofit program, the problems persisted. According to data from the CPSC, an additional 249 reported incidents included 77 burns, 16 of which were second- or third-degree in nature. On July 19th 2007, Hasbro re-issued its voluntary recall of the Easy-Bake after learning that part of a 5-year-old girl's finger had to be amputated because of a severe burn. The recall affected 985,000 ovens that had been sold between May 2006 and July 2007. Ovens sold prior to May 2006 were not part of the recall, leaving more than 25 million side-entry/light bulb models in circulation unaffected.
Notes
Raytheon
Raytheon's research on the magnetron tube revealed the potential of microwaves to cook food. In 1945, Raytheon's Percy Spencer invented the microwave oven by discovering that the magnetron could rapidly heat food. In 1947, the company demonstrated the Radarange microwave oven for commercial use.
Bronchiolitis obliterans
In 2007 a heavy consumer of microwaved popcorn was diagnosed by a doctor in Denver with "popcorn lung," the first known case involving a consumer. On 16 January 2008, it was announced that Wayne Watson, a Denver man who developed "popcorn lung" after inhaling fumes from microwaved popcorn, was suing the Kroger grocery store chain and its affiliates. In the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court, Watson's attorney claimed that the companies "failed to warn that preparing microwave popcorn in a microwave oven as intended and smelling the buttery aroma could expose the consumer to an inhalation hazard and a risk of lung injury." On 19 September 2012 a jury in U.S. District Court in Denver awarded $2.3 million in actual damages and $5 million in punitive damages to Watson. Defendants included Gilster-Mary Lee, the manufacturer; Kroger, and Kroger's subsidiary Dillons, owners of King Soopers & City Market, a Colorado regional supermarket chain.
Svea 123
Svea stoves were first made by C.R. Nybergs Lödlampfabrik, which also manufactured blowtorches as well as other machinery and equipment. Founded by Carl Nyberg, the firm later became one of the largest industries in Sundbyberg, Sweden. In 1922, the business was taken over by Max Sievert, an early associate of Nyberg's, and renamed Sieverts Lödlampfabrik (later known as Sievert AB). The Svea 123, introduced in 1955, is considered to be the first compact backpacking white gas stove and one of the most popular camping stoves ever made. Its distinctive "roaring" sound has been likened to that of a jet engine at takeoff. In 1969, the Svea brand was acquired by Optimus, another Swedish manufacturer of portable stoves, which has continued production of the Svea 123 to the present day. Because of its simple design and reputation for dependable performance, even under extreme conditions, the Svea 123 enjoys a devoted following.
Thelma Pressman
Pressman studied microwave technology at California Community Colleges in 1967. In 1969 she founded the first microwave cooking school in the United States in Encino, California. The Microwave Cooking Center became an industry test kitchen in which products were evaluated and cookware and recipes were developed for the nascent microwave industry.
Microwave oven
Formerly found only in large industrial applications, microwave ovens increasingly became a standard fixture of residential kitchens in developed countries. By 1986, roughly 25% of households in the U.S. owned a microwave oven, up from only about 1% in 1971; the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that over 90% of American households owned a microwave oven in 1997. In Australia, a 2008 market research study found that 95% of kitchens contained a microwave oven and that 83% of them were used daily. In Canada, fewer than 5% of households had a microwave oven in 1979, but more than 88% of households owned one by 1998. In France, 40% of households owned a microwave oven in 1994, but that number had increased to 65% by 2004.
Microwave oven
In 1945, the specific heating effect of a high-power microwave beam was accidentally discovered by Percy Spencer, an American self-taught engineer from Howland, Maine. Employed by Raytheon at the time, he noticed that microwaves from an active radar set he was working on started to melt a chocolate bar he had in his pocket. The first food deliberately cooked with Spencer's microwave was popcorn, and the second was an egg, which exploded in the face of one of the experimenters. To verify his finding, Spencer created a high density electromagnetic field by feeding microwave power from a magnetron into a metal box from which it had no way to escape. When food was placed in the box with the microwave energy, the temperature of the food rose rapidly. On 8 October 1945, Raytheon filed a United States patent application for Spencer's microwave cooking process, and an oven that heated food using microwave energy from a magnetron was soon placed in a Boston restaurant for testing.