The History of the Microwave Oven

[Music] reheater of pizzas popper of corn melter of Tupperware the microwave oven forever changed what and how we eat for better and for worse but where did those small magical metal Gadgets in our kitchen come from and how have they affected food culture isn't that a blessing today on weird history food we're gonna talk about the history of microwave ovens and how they changed the way Americans eat but before we get started be sure to subscribe to the weird history Food Channel and let us know in the comments below what unconventional Foods or culinary inventions you would like to know more about okay time to scald your lips off with a crispy crusty tender flaky crust well we dig into some weird history like many inventions the microwave oven as we know it wasn't really planned as much as it was accidentally discovered it All Began in the very late 1930s when an American physicist by the name of Percy Spencer was overseeing the power tube division of the Raytheon manufacturing company located in Cambridge Massachusetts uh what you need to know about Spencer is that he was no ordinary physicist the guy was a bona fide genius born in Howland Maine on July 19 1894 and orphaned several years later Spencer quit school in fifth grade and found middle jobs to support himself and his aunt yeah you heard that right my man quit fifth grade to go work in the mill now that is grizzled one of the Mills Spencer wortette had just started using electricity which was a rarity in his town despite dropping out of school before he was even a teenager and having no formal education in electrical engineering or anything for that matter he became one of the Mills three electricians you must have really dazzled them during the interview he held that job until he turned 18 and joined the U.S Navy while in the Navy Spencer satiated his Newfound appetite for electrical engineering by spending his free time reading every science textbook he could find later admitting to even studying while standing watch at night and hey how Vigilant of a guard did he really need to be is someone going to break into the Navy let the guy invent the microwave already by the time he left the Navy Spencer had taught himself everything from trigonometry and calculus to chemistry physics and Metallurgy we did mention he was a Bonafide genius right Spencer later attributed his interest in science to the sinking of the Titanic that's crazy because most of us just got really into Celine Dion Spencer felt like the 1912 disaster could have been prevented with improved Wireless Communications and he was intent on preventing similar tragedies through Advanced Radio technology when Spencer left the Navy in 1925 he caught the attention of Lawrence Marshall one of three co-founders of American Appliance Company a major U.S defense contractor out of Cambridge Massachusetts Marshall changed the name of his company to Raytheon ooh much snappier and hired the 31 year old Spencer as one of his primary engineers [Music] during Spencer's first 14 years at Raytheon business was touch and go and some years they were even near bankruptcy but all that changed in 1939 when the stars started debut of World War II Raytheon was a major U.S military defense contractor specializing in weapons Machinery development and electronics such as radar technology but most of raytheon's success during the war came from Spencer he became a superstar at the company interact up over 300 patents in the process the self-taught scientists just had a knack for coming up with smart efficient and cost-effective solutions whenever the other Raytheon Engineers found themselves in trouble Spencer presumably got hazed a lot for being a warmonger's pet wait do nerds Haze each other maybe they put super glue on a slide rule by the end of 1944 the war was predicted to end within a year and Raytheon was teetering on the brink of financial ruin once again so Lawrence Marshall invited half a dozen of his highest ranking senior employees to his home for dinner and asked them what the hell the company should do once their military contracts dried up so sir who by this time was already regarded as one of the world's leading authorities in radar tube design had recently been making some wild discoveries while working with magnetron and electromagnetic waves so at that dinner Spencer suggested that Raytheon redirect its cutting-edge radar technology and build an oven yeah that probably didn't go over too well at first that's the kind of idea that gets you sent home early but thanks to his undeniable track record Spencer wasn't immediately told to clean out his desk his game changing idea was the result of a melted candy bar prior to Marshall presenting his team with finding a solution for the company's projected loss in Revenue Spencer had been working with magnetrons a high power vacuum tube used in raytheon's radar systems one day while standing in front of one of these devices he noticed that the candy bar in his pocket had melted once he finished weaving a tapestry of obscenities over his room and shirt he had a Eureka moment although some sources allege the gooey culprit was Mr Goodbar Rod Spencer the physicist grandson insists it was a peanut cluster bar which the Elder Spencer carried around in his pocket to feed the squirrels and chipmunks on his daily walks which on a side note do not feed animals chocolate not a genius in everything immediately after he discovered his melted peanut treat Spencer sent an assistant out to buy some popcorn kernels and saw that the magnetron could successfully pop them the following day he brought in raw eggs presumably for the experiment although it may have also been raw day at the office he placed an egg in a tea kettle positioned it beneath the magnetron and within seconds the egg exploded in the face of one of his co-workers who am I I guess nerds do Haze each other while the magnetron's ability to produce heat was something that was already known at raytheon's Labs the melted peanut brick is what gave Spencer the idea to use this technology to cook food Spencer knew he was on to something revolutionary now he just had to figure out how to contain and control the high frequency radio waves and electromagnetic radiation [Music] about a year after Marshall's dinner party Raytheon filed a U.S patent on October 8 1945 for what was described as a microwave cooking process by 1947 the company that was once mostly reliant on their military contracts was now in the kitchen appliance business which is a lateral move really have you ever tried cooking it's like D-Day I don't know what to do guys I don't know what to do their first product was the radar Range model 1161 the world's first microwave oven however the radar range was a behemoth it was a stainless steel chunk of food incinerator with the dimensions of a standard full-sized refrigerator but almost four times as heavy it also consumed a whopping three kilowatts nearly three times as much wattage as today's microwave ovens to top it off it was water cooled like an actual nuclear reactor you also needed a team of techs to install the thing it was by no means practical but it did work ultimately the radar range was only good for commercial use restaurant kitchens trains ships and hotels the radar range was also expensive one unit cost five thousand dollars which works out to well over sixty five thousand dollars today if you convert for the price of inflation and while they say you should spend three months salary on an engagement ring the microwave was never meant to cost more than its weight in reheated burritos suffice it to say the world's first microwave oven wasn't the big seller Raytheon was banking on while the sales of the original radar range stalled Raytheon kept refining their new oven in 1954 about seven years after the model 1161's debut the company introduced a smaller version the model 1170. this new radar range was a little more Compact and only consumed 1.6 kilowatts closer to today's heat boxes and at two thousand to three thousand dollars it costs about half as much as the original still the manufacturers suggested retail price was too rich for most people's blood even if it did Grant the ability to thicken that blood with pounds of nuke quesadillas [Music] although Percy Spencer's radar range got smaller and less expensive and was heavily marketed to busy wives with hungry husbands who expected a hot plate in front of them when they came home from work sails were still Bleak the consumer reception of the microwave remained as lukewarm as the center of your reheated mashed potatoes that wouldn't change until 1967 when Raytheon finally introduced a relatively small countertop model it was still expensive at 500 almost 4 500 in modern money but it proved there was a market for the device however the size and cost were the only things making potential microwave customers uneasy remember this was a new technology at the time the average homeowner had no idea how a metal box could turn frozen food into a piping hot meal in minutes what kind of Sinister sorcery could pull off such a dark Miracle basically people weren't sure whether microwaves were safe it's difficult to imagine now but there was definite pushback from a lot of consumers regarding the microwave oven throughout the 50s and even into the early 70s Americans were uncertain about what microwave technology did to food at the time films television comic books and other pulpey media were obsessed with the atomic age and using a metal box to Nuke your dinner seemed dangerous splitting the atom ended World War II what would it do to a chicken pot pie but the microwave oven just doesn't work that way the device uses low energy waves which produce such little energy it's impossible for them to change the chemistry of food all the microwaves are doing is stimulating water molecules here's how it works when you place a slice of pizza in your microwave oven and Press Start microwaves are immediately produced by a small magnetron just like the one that melted Percy Spencer's peanut cluster bar those electromagnetic waves bounce off the metal interior walls of your oven and are then absorbed by your slice of zomb those waves then cause the water molecules in your pizza to vibrate like crazy and when molecules vibrate they produce heat the key difference is that microwaves penetrate food heating it from the inside out whereas a traditional oven Heats your food from the surface inwards that's why you can heat food in a microwave and it will never brown or get crispy like it will in a standard oven all that said it's probably probably a good thing that most Americans had no idea what was going on at London's National Institute for medical research that's where a young independent scientist and futurist by the name of James Lovelock was able to successfully reanimate a frozen hamster with his own makeshift microwave oven news of the microwaves frankensteining abilities would probably not have been good for business the home microwave oven in America really didn't take off until the early 1980s when Japanese companies began producing smaller and better looking models by the mid 80s 25 percent of all U.S households had one which was a pretty big jump from the one percent of American homes that owned a microwave during the early 70s the jump in microwave oven sales did not go unnoticed by frozen food manufacturers in 1986 the Campbell frozen food company which was manufacturing Swanson TV dinners in those cool sectional aluminum trays developed a new microwave safe tray made out of polyethylene terrifalli the same type of plastic used in leader-sized soda bottles the increase in microwave oven sales also didn't go unnoticed by Health Food Advocates founded in 1989 right as the pre-packaged microwave food craze was in full flight slow food International began a Grassroots campaign to preserve local food cultures and traditions Traditions that do not include the microwave oven microwave sales in the United States peaked in 2006 but as consumers began to favor healthier meals and the Art of cooking and food prep sales have slowly declined ever since the rise of the Food Network probably had something to do with this curse you celebrity chefs the microwavable meal industry focused on customers that would rather simply heat up some Easy Mac than put together a healthy balanced meal with sophisticated flavor profiles that takes hours and then you have a bunch of dishes to clean Easy Mac takes three minutes and you throw it in the garbage when you're done that's some pretty easy math so the microwave the appliance that was once so untouchable Americans voted it an essential product alongside cars washing machines and air conditioners in a 2006 Pew research Bowl has lost its luster as the junk food we like to put in it has lost its luster but junk food never goes out of style and neither does reheating a plate of leftovers on nights where you just don't feel like cooking so although its popularity may have cooled to room temperature the microwave oven isn't going anywhere in fact microwave popcorn and Hot Pockets experienced a Resurgence in popularity during the coronavirus lockdown while the microwave needs is another pandemic image back on top baby at least until black Decker fulfills the prophecy of Back to the Future Part 2 and finally releases the hydrator so what do you think what's your favorite microwave treat let us know in the comments below and while you're at it check out some of these other weird history food videos

Channel: Weird History Food

Views: 180,137

Keywords: history of the microwave oven, the accidental invention of the microwave, who made the microwave oven?, how the microwave changed the american appetite, invention history the microwave, weird history food, weird history food inventions, microwave oven, microwave radiation, microwave invention facts, brief history microwave, microwave evolution, food history, food inventions, food technology, random foods you shouldn't microwave, tom scott, insider business, tasting history

Id: UJBZk88O6BU

Length: 14min 7sec (847 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 01 2023