Who would have ever put an oven in a hotel room, but it makes perfect sense to put a microwave in one. The microwave didn't have to be a regular oven or stove it was a wholly new category of cooking device that made cooking accessible to even the least talented guy on earth. How in the world did we used to heat up leftovers? Sure, people tried out the crazy, complicated recipes, but for the most part, they found new uses for microwaves. In the store, a microwave didn't seem like a must-have item to many, but once you incorporated it into your daily life, it was irreplaceable.
Look, you can make this great Chinese dish in a microwave! Our microwave lets you bake a cake! Need a hot cup of this complicated spiced cider? It'll only take 15 steps in our microwave! They thought the microwave needed to be a full oven, and more.īut, wonder of all wonders, people started buying microwaves and using them regularly. So manufacturers bundled them with cookbooks that detailed the many things you could cook in a microwave. Looking just at the specs, a microwave didn't make sense to many. Do you really need another oven? Plus, surely it won't work quite like an oven, or quite like a stove. And the coffee pot can keep coffee hot anyhow.
First, why in the world do you need yet another way to heat food? Kitchens already have an oven and range, plus perhaps a toaster, waffle iron, or a grill on the back porch. What more could you ask?Īctually, there was a lot customers could ask. It could heat food faster, use less energy, and be less likely to burn your house down than a traditional oven. This device, manufactured mainly by defense contractors such as Raytheon due to their expertise with the magnetron, the device that generates microwaves in a radar system or microwave oven, was now supposed to be a fixture in every home, restaurant, and more. In 1967, American consumers were introduced to the new, must have item for their kitchens: the microwave oven.