WEBVTT - Two Accidental Inventions 0:00:01.280 --> 0:00:04.279 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:13.480 of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:13.520 --> 0:00:17.959 I'm Holly Fry, and I'm Tracy B. Wilson. Tracy Happenstance 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:19.880 has been on my mind a lot lately for a 0:00:19.960 --> 0:00:24.119 variety of reasons. Things that are coincidental or um the 0:00:24.160 --> 0:00:26.800 people accidentally have fallen into good fortune have just come 0:00:26.840 --> 0:00:29.960 up in lots of conversations lately for no particular reason 0:00:30.000 --> 0:00:33.919 I can discern um. And I have also had a 0:00:33.960 --> 0:00:36.720 list brewing for a while of topics that are kind 0:00:36.760 --> 0:00:40.640 of happy accidents, and so uh, it seemed like maybe 0:00:40.680 --> 0:00:42.839 the universe was conspiring to tell me to look at 0:00:42.880 --> 0:00:47.440 that list again. One category of those happy accidents that 0:00:47.479 --> 0:00:50.560 I have on my list is accidental inventions. So we're 0:00:50.600 --> 0:00:53.520 going to talk about a couple of those today. Here's 0:00:53.600 --> 0:00:56.200 my true confession upfront. I had planned to make this 0:00:57.400 --> 0:01:03.080 three accidental inventions, but the two that we're covering today, 0:01:03.120 --> 0:01:06.839 as I was researching, got too big, and so another 0:01:06.920 --> 0:01:10.640 got cut. But that means that probably another installment or 0:01:10.640 --> 0:01:15.000 two of of accidental inventions happened on the road, and 0:01:15.120 --> 0:01:20.000 a wonderful confluence of happy accidents see it's all about UH, 0:01:20.080 --> 0:01:24.440 accidents and happiness. Both of these accidental inventions, although one 0:01:24.800 --> 0:01:26.800 might not have been an accident we'll talk about that 0:01:27.120 --> 0:01:29.760 have to do with cooking and food. So first we'll 0:01:29.800 --> 0:01:32.560 have a main course if you will UH and if 0:01:32.560 --> 0:01:35.120 you're nice and flexible in that definition, and then a 0:01:35.160 --> 0:01:38.520 dessert but has a little bitterness to be how you 0:01:38.600 --> 0:01:40.840 look at it. You will see what I mean when 0:01:40.920 --> 0:01:43.960 we get there. So today we're covering two accidental inventions. 0:01:44.760 --> 0:01:49.720 We'll start with a very very common household appliance. Microwaves 0:01:49.800 --> 0:01:53.080 are high frequency electromagnetic waves, and as it turns out, 0:01:53.120 --> 0:01:55.960 you can use them to cook food. Here's a very 0:01:56.080 --> 0:01:59.160 quick and simple explanation of how that works. If you 0:01:59.200 --> 0:02:04.200 put food in an electromagnetic field, the fats and water 0:02:04.480 --> 0:02:08.040 and other elements of the food will absorb those waves 0:02:08.080 --> 0:02:11.040 and then start to vibrate. They're excited to a point 0:02:11.040 --> 0:02:14.200 of hyperactivity, and they vibrate so much that it produces 0:02:14.240 --> 0:02:17.239 heat within the food itself. That's a faster way to 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:20.000 cook things than when the heat is coming from an 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:24.200 external source like an oven. Right, So usually you'll see 0:02:24.200 --> 0:02:27.560 people say that it's UH fats, waters and sugars that 0:02:27.600 --> 0:02:31.520 are the primary drivers of that heat. Just as an aside, 0:02:31.600 --> 0:02:33.160 I wanted to get this out there because I bet 0:02:33.240 --> 0:02:35.959 people are like ready to dash off a listener mail. 0:02:36.240 --> 0:02:39.120 If you have heard that cooking with a microwave destroys 0:02:39.160 --> 0:02:43.040 food nutrients, that is a myth because the cooking time 0:02:43.200 --> 0:02:46.200 is so reduced, nothing is ever cooked long enough for 0:02:46.240 --> 0:02:49.960 the microwave radiation to actually destroy any nutrients. And you're 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:52.760 also not using any additional water like you might if 0:02:52.760 --> 0:02:55.760 you were boiling something to cook it, so no nutrients 0:02:55.800 --> 0:02:59.040 are leaching out into the cooking substance like a water 0:02:59.600 --> 0:03:05.679 at all, just stays right there. You're fine. Uh. When 0:03:05.680 --> 0:03:08.280 I was in massage school, one of my massage school 0:03:08.280 --> 0:03:11.880 classmates insisted that one should not cook with the microwave 0:03:12.000 --> 0:03:14.760 because microwaves made all the molecules in the food you 0:03:14.800 --> 0:03:18.280 were cooking spin backwards. And yeah, I've heard lots of 0:03:18.320 --> 0:03:23.000 similar myths. We had an argument about that on like 0:03:23.440 --> 0:03:30.120 last day of massage school. Even though that is not true. 0:03:30.320 --> 0:03:33.799 You can get uneven cooking with a microwave when you're 0:03:33.840 --> 0:03:37.360 heating something up that has different ingredients with different moisture content, 0:03:37.440 --> 0:03:41.000 and that's why you'll sometimes take something out find that 0:03:41.080 --> 0:03:43.920 part of it is still cool, presumably a drier part 0:03:44.000 --> 0:03:47.000 like the crust, and then another part is blazing hot 0:03:47.080 --> 0:03:50.160 like a filling. Of course, that means you can't really 0:03:50.160 --> 0:03:54.800 get something crispy on the outside either. Crisping sleeves help, 0:03:54.880 --> 0:03:57.760 but you're not gonna make fried chicken in a microwave. 0:03:57.800 --> 0:04:01.720 That's what's up um. This year, while we're recording this two, 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:04.600 will be the fifty fifth anniversary of what's usually called 0:04:04.600 --> 0:04:09.080 the first home microwave oven. Uh, there's actually a precursor, 0:04:09.160 --> 0:04:10.800 but that's the one that gets all the credit. That 0:04:10.840 --> 0:04:14.560 was introduced to the market by manufacturer Amana. But that 0:04:14.680 --> 0:04:17.600 wasn't the first microwave oven, even though it was the 0:04:17.640 --> 0:04:21.440 first successful consumer one. Industrial kitchens started using them in 0:04:21.480 --> 0:04:25.400 the nineteen fifties, well before the nine seven debut of 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:29.680 Amana's home use radar range. All of this is older 0:04:29.720 --> 0:04:33.479 than I thought, because my households first microwave was much 0:04:33.680 --> 0:04:36.440 later than that. Oh, I have plans to ask you 0:04:36.480 --> 0:04:40.159 all about it, Okay, in our behind the scenes so 0:04:40.320 --> 0:04:43.360 radar as you may recall the text objects by sending 0:04:43.440 --> 0:04:46.679 radio waves and then identifying objects when the waves bounce 0:04:46.720 --> 0:04:49.919 back from the surface. Of those objects. Radar was first 0:04:50.000 --> 0:04:54.480 used to create a detection system by physicist Sir Robert 0:04:54.480 --> 0:05:00.360 Watson watt In and radar systems require magnature wants to 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:03.520 produce all those radio waves. So during World War Two, 0:05:03.600 --> 0:05:08.400 the military needed magnetrons. They needed a lot of magnetrons. 0:05:08.600 --> 0:05:11.719 They needed more magnetrons than they could possibly get their 0:05:11.760 --> 0:05:15.840 hands on. Yes, you will sometimes see this contract as 0:05:15.880 --> 0:05:19.640 happening that we're about to talk about coming from the 0:05:19.760 --> 0:05:25.400 US military or from the British military. I think after 0:05:25.480 --> 0:05:27.880 reading a bunch of different versions of it, what had 0:05:27.920 --> 0:05:31.880 happened was the British military was kind of asking the 0:05:32.000 --> 0:05:34.279 US to help them as well, and that's how it 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:38.000 kind of gets confused there of who actually wanted to 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:42.680 contract this company called Raytheon, and there was an engineer 0:05:42.720 --> 0:05:48.800 named Percy LeBaron Spencer. Spencer was born in eight in Howland, Maine, 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:53.200 and his early years were really marked by pretty extreme poverty. Uh. 0:05:53.200 --> 0:05:55.400 He started working when he was still just a kid, 0:05:55.520 --> 0:05:58.040 taking a job at a weaving mill at age twelve, 0:05:58.320 --> 0:06:00.680 because he had to take care of himself and his 0:06:00.760 --> 0:06:04.080 aunt who was raising him at the time. He was 0:06:04.200 --> 0:06:07.760 a very very smart kid, just a couple of years later. So, 0:06:07.839 --> 0:06:11.440 when he was still a pretty teenager, Percy, who had 0:06:11.520 --> 0:06:15.839 no formal education past grammar school, taught himself everything that 0:06:15.920 --> 0:06:18.919 he could about electrical wiring so he could apply for 0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:21.599 a job at a paper plant that needed someone to 0:06:21.680 --> 0:06:25.560 wire the entire factory for electricity. And he got that 0:06:25.680 --> 0:06:28.880 job and did it. In nineteen twelve, at the age 0:06:28.880 --> 0:06:32.240 of eighteen, Spencer joined the Navy as a radio operator, 0:06:32.320 --> 0:06:36.240 and he devoured all the information he could about radio technology. 0:06:36.760 --> 0:06:40.640 And he didn't stop there. He was curious about almost everything, 0:06:40.720 --> 0:06:43.560 it seems, and he continued to be an autodiet act. 0:06:43.600 --> 0:06:48.479 He taught himself calculus, chemistry, physics, and even metallurgy. He 0:06:48.560 --> 0:06:51.640 did all of that from books. Later on in life 0:06:51.680 --> 0:06:53.720 he said, quote, I just got hold of a lot 0:06:53.760 --> 0:06:56.640 of textbooks and taught myself while I was standing watch 0:06:56.640 --> 0:07:00.080 at night. I have such admiration for him. Uh. The 0:07:00.240 --> 0:07:03.200 World War One had ended and Percy Spencer had fulfilled 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:06.359 his enlistment contract. He took a job with a new company, 0:07:06.440 --> 0:07:10.800 the American Appliance Company, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the late 0:07:10.840 --> 0:07:14.360 ninety twenties. The company went through several reorganizations and a 0:07:14.440 --> 0:07:21.160 reincorporation and it became Raytheon Manufacturing Company. Raytheon in partnership 0:07:21.200 --> 0:07:23.720 with M I. T. That allowed the company to use 0:07:23.760 --> 0:07:28.160 the school's radiation laboratory. Got this government contract to build 0:07:28.240 --> 0:07:32.440 magnetrons pretty early in World War Two, and Spencer got 0:07:32.480 --> 0:07:36.720 to work and he did innovate magnatron production. He developed 0:07:36.720 --> 0:07:39.880 a way to cut pieces needed for assembly from sheet 0:07:40.000 --> 0:07:43.960 metal instead of needing every single component to be made separately, 0:07:44.680 --> 0:07:48.120 and he kept working with the magnetrons that Raytheon produced 0:07:48.240 --> 0:07:52.160 to work on improving them and expanding their uses. Raytheon 0:07:52.280 --> 0:07:56.400 ended up developing a shipboard radar system and producing about 0:07:56.440 --> 0:07:59.720 eighty percent of the magnetrons that were used by the Allies. 0:08:00.480 --> 0:08:05.280 But the expansion into cooking was really an accident. Yeah, 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:08.760 they were a defense contractors. They were not like and food. 0:08:09.400 --> 0:08:12.320 So the story goes that one day at work, Spencer 0:08:12.440 --> 0:08:15.480 had a candy bar in his pocket that was a 0:08:15.520 --> 0:08:19.080 peanut cluster according to his grandson, because he used to 0:08:19.160 --> 0:08:21.440 break up the nuts and feed them to squirrels and 0:08:21.520 --> 0:08:25.920 chipmunks during his lynches. And after working near a live 0:08:26.000 --> 0:08:29.120 magnetron with this candy bar in his pocket, he noticed 0:08:29.160 --> 0:08:32.080 that it had gotten a bit melty. He had not 0:08:32.160 --> 0:08:34.480 been near a heat source, so he suspected that the 0:08:34.480 --> 0:08:37.920 magnetron and its radio waves might have had something to 0:08:37.960 --> 0:08:40.640 do with it. So he got to work and did 0:08:40.640 --> 0:08:45.160 some testing. The first thing that Spencer purposely targeted with 0:08:45.240 --> 0:08:48.440 the radio waves was an egg, and after just a 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:53.120 brief exposure, the egg exploded. Next, he tested corn kernels, 0:08:53.160 --> 0:08:56.880 so that's right. He basically made microwave popcorn. After some 0:08:56.920 --> 0:09:01.200 additional testing and refinement of magnetron's them for cooking food 0:09:01.320 --> 0:09:04.920 instead of producing radar, Spencer filed for a patent for 0:09:04.960 --> 0:09:09.080 what he called method of Treating food Stuffs. That opens 0:09:09.120 --> 0:09:12.200 with quote, my present invention relates to the treatment of 0:09:12.240 --> 0:09:15.720 food stuffs and more particularly to the cooking thereof through 0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:19.480 the use of electromagnetic energy. Yeah, if you look at 0:09:19.520 --> 0:09:21.920 this story, depending on your source, some people will say 0:09:21.920 --> 0:09:26.240 the popcorn came first. His grandson did a recent interview 0:09:26.320 --> 0:09:28.640 last year with Popular Mechanics and he said the egg 0:09:28.720 --> 0:09:33.240 was the first thing. People's memories are sieves could go 0:09:33.360 --> 0:09:38.800 either way, right, so uh. In this patent application, Spencer 0:09:38.840 --> 0:09:41.520 goes on to describe all of the various parts needed 0:09:41.559 --> 0:09:44.040 for the device and how they function together. And then 0:09:44.080 --> 0:09:47.719 touts quote, with the system described, I have found that 0:09:47.880 --> 0:09:51.360 an egg may be rendered hard boiled with the expenditure 0:09:51.480 --> 0:09:54.920 of two kilowatts per second. This compares with an expenditure 0:09:54.920 --> 0:09:58.680 of thirty six kilowatts per second to conventionally cook the 0:09:58.760 --> 0:10:01.319 same I have all so found that with my system, 0:10:01.360 --> 0:10:04.800 a potato requires the expenditure of about two hundred forty 0:10:04.880 --> 0:10:07.960 kilowats per second, when compared with the seventy two thousand 0:10:08.400 --> 0:10:11.800 kilowat seconds necessary to bake the same in an electric oven. 0:10:12.559 --> 0:10:16.720 These examples are, it is to be clearly understood merely illustrative. 0:10:17.160 --> 0:10:20.440 I have observed similar results with other food stuffs. In 0:10:20.480 --> 0:10:23.200 each instance, where the wavelength of the energy is of 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:25.720 the order of the average dimension of the food stuff 0:10:25.960 --> 0:10:29.440 to be cooked, the process is very efficient, requiring the 0:10:29.480 --> 0:10:32.600 expenditure of a minimum amount of energy for a minimum 0:10:32.600 --> 0:10:36.480 amount of time. He also indicates that cooks will no 0:10:36.559 --> 0:10:40.280 doubt find many uses for his invention, writing quote, other 0:10:40.400 --> 0:10:43.880 objects and advantages of my present invention will readily occur 0:10:44.000 --> 0:10:47.240 to those skilled in the art to which the same relates. 0:10:48.080 --> 0:10:53.000 The patent request was submitted on October and was granted 0:10:53.000 --> 0:10:56.120 as Patent number two four nine five four to nine 0:10:56.240 --> 0:11:01.120 on January nine fifty. But even before the patent was 0:11:01.160 --> 0:11:05.640 officially awarded, Raytheon had started working on microwave ovens, and 0:11:05.679 --> 0:11:09.000 the first was the commercial Radar Range, which was named 0:11:09.240 --> 0:11:15.480 via an employee contest. This was first demonstrated in a 0:11:15.600 --> 0:11:19.400 Boston restaurant got the chance to use one as a test. 0:11:20.040 --> 0:11:23.640 Was the size of a refrigerator, and depending on specific features, 0:11:23.640 --> 0:11:26.880 that costs between two thousand and three thousand dollars. It's 0:11:26.920 --> 0:11:29.640 a lot of money. In a moment, we were going 0:11:29.679 --> 0:11:32.880 to talk about how that behemoth machine was followed by 0:11:32.920 --> 0:11:36.320 smaller models and how the microwave became a household standard, 0:11:36.640 --> 0:11:49.120 but first we will pause for a sponsor break. Thanks 0:11:49.160 --> 0:11:52.040 to the commercial microwave oven, it was soon on the 0:11:52.080 --> 0:11:56.079 minds of many engineers at manufacturing companies that a smaller 0:11:56.160 --> 0:11:58.920 version of the radar Range or a similar device could 0:11:58.920 --> 0:12:03.360 be marketed for home use. Raytheon partnered with Tappen Stove 0:12:03.400 --> 0:12:07.640 Company in nineteen fifty two to produce a reduced sized model, 0:12:07.760 --> 0:12:10.839 and they had one available to consumers in nineteen fifty five. 0:12:11.320 --> 0:12:14.120 This is that precursor I mentioned earlier, but it was 0:12:14.200 --> 0:12:17.800 twelve hundred to thirteen hundred dollars depending on the source 0:12:17.840 --> 0:12:21.760 you look at, far outside the budget of most homes. 0:12:22.120 --> 0:12:25.560 We always caveat that converting currency through time is a 0:12:25.600 --> 0:12:29.040 tricky and inaccurate thing. But I looked at several different 0:12:29.080 --> 0:12:33.040 inflation calculators. They all quoted an equivalency of more than 0:12:33.120 --> 0:12:36.680 twelve thousand dollars in current currency, some quite close to 0:12:36.760 --> 0:12:40.360 thirteen thousand. So, needless to say, the tap and radar 0:12:40.480 --> 0:12:43.560 range really did not catch on. In nineteen sixty five, 0:12:43.640 --> 0:12:47.959 Raytheon acquired a company called a Manner Refrigeration, Inc. At 0:12:47.960 --> 0:12:51.640 the time, they made, as the name suggests, refrigerators as 0:12:51.679 --> 0:12:54.800 well as air conditioners, and the company had already started 0:12:54.840 --> 0:12:59.640 working on commercial and industrial microwave ovens. Under Raytheon, the 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:03.760 company expanded to include a consumer division, and this meant 0:13:03.760 --> 0:13:06.400 that not only was a Manna already working on a 0:13:06.440 --> 0:13:10.439 home microwave, but it already had a consumer distribution process 0:13:10.960 --> 0:13:12.920 that made it easy to get to market once all 0:13:12.960 --> 0:13:16.680 the engineering and design were perfected. As we mentioned a 0:13:16.720 --> 0:13:19.920 moment ago, the first consumer model, the r R one 0:13:20.040 --> 0:13:24.560 radar range, became available in nine That was a one 0:13:25.040 --> 0:13:27.720 volt countertop model that cost a little less than five 0:13:27.800 --> 0:13:31.360 hundred dollars, so still very much a luxury item, but 0:13:31.679 --> 0:13:35.560 much less expensive than that earlier attempt. It had a 0:13:35.640 --> 0:13:40.480 start button and a timer, obviously not digital, and it 0:13:40.559 --> 0:13:43.240 did not have a stop or cancel button. You just 0:13:43.280 --> 0:13:46.480 had to open it to stop it. The following year, 0:13:46.559 --> 0:13:49.600 a new model appeared with a stop button and a 0:13:49.640 --> 0:13:52.160 timer that allowed for up to thirty minutes of cooking. 0:13:52.240 --> 0:13:55.000 That was an addition of five minutes from how long 0:13:55.040 --> 0:13:58.800 the first model would have allowed. The reliability and the 0:13:58.800 --> 0:14:03.640 lower cost of the Amana radar range compared to it's 0:14:03.640 --> 0:14:07.600 it's briefly run predecessor made it very popular, very quickly. 0:14:08.200 --> 0:14:10.680 By the middle of the nineteen seventies, it was estimated 0:14:10.720 --> 0:14:14.439 that one million microwaves were being sold annually, and we 0:14:14.520 --> 0:14:18.080 really cannot overstate how much of a sensation this was. 0:14:18.320 --> 0:14:22.120 It was reported in papers regularly. In December of nineteen 0:14:22.160 --> 0:14:26.280 sixty eight, the daily Memphis Tennessee paper, The Commercial Appeal, 0:14:26.520 --> 0:14:29.880 ran an article about microwave ovens that featured a huge 0:14:29.880 --> 0:14:34.200 photograph of the first Memphis woman to have one. She 0:14:34.400 --> 0:14:38.040 is referenced as Mrs Ralph ur Sneed. We don't know 0:14:38.120 --> 0:14:42.120 what her first name was, and even the delivery man. J. L. 0:14:42.280 --> 0:14:45.120 Jetting of Jetting Appliances gets a shout out for this 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:49.160 momentous occasion. Yeah, there's a very cute like the delivery 0:14:49.200 --> 0:14:52.000 man standing there having handed it off, and she's already 0:14:52.040 --> 0:14:55.120 starting to put something in it. Like I'm like, are 0:14:55.120 --> 0:14:57.440 you cooking for the delivery man? I don't know, but 0:14:57.560 --> 0:15:01.240 it's what seemed very exciting for everyone involved. This article 0:15:01.400 --> 0:15:04.840 goes on to list the details and capabilities of this 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:08.360 quote cooking method of tomorrow. And some of these I 0:15:08.400 --> 0:15:11.720 found extraordinarily charming because when you look at them through 0:15:11.760 --> 0:15:14.960 today's lens, they're quite witty. So I'm going to read 0:15:15.000 --> 0:15:18.000 them off. It gave it a bulleted list. So number one, 0:15:18.040 --> 0:15:21.400 the microwave oven is priced under five hundred dollars to 0:15:22.160 --> 0:15:25.280 it operates on a hundred and fifteen volts. Just plug 0:15:25.320 --> 0:15:30.320 it in. Three it brown's meat, will cook anything. Four 0:15:30.360 --> 0:15:35.760 it saves seventy cooking time. Five it saves on the 0:15:35.760 --> 0:15:39.760 fuel bill. It uses less electricity than an ordinary frying pan. 0:15:40.680 --> 0:15:44.600 Six it saves on the food bill. Seven it produces 0:15:44.640 --> 0:15:49.800 a much cooler kitchen, no heat whatsoever. Eight foods actually 0:15:49.840 --> 0:15:54.680 taste better for natural juices are retained and not lost. Okay, 0:15:54.680 --> 0:15:58.080 most people would probably agree that the microwave is not 0:15:58.160 --> 0:16:01.560 really the best way to took most meals, and whether 0:16:01.600 --> 0:16:04.040 they taste better or not depends a lot on exactly 0:16:04.080 --> 0:16:06.440 what you are cooking. But you can see how the 0:16:06.520 --> 0:16:10.239 idea of a more efficient kitchen that is not swelteringly 0:16:10.320 --> 0:16:15.160 hot would have a huge appeal and also feel legitimately revolutionary. 0:16:15.840 --> 0:16:18.480 One of the funnier attributes of the microwave mentioned in 0:16:18.480 --> 0:16:22.680 that particular article is portability. There's this suggestion that you 0:16:22.720 --> 0:16:24.840 can take it out on the patio or even into 0:16:24.920 --> 0:16:29.160 your living room to cook if you wanted. That cracked 0:16:29.160 --> 0:16:31.720 me up so much when I was reading it, like 0:16:32.200 --> 0:16:35.920 just picturing putting a meal in the microwave, as I 0:16:35.960 --> 0:16:37.680 said on the couch, I don't know, I don't know. 0:16:37.760 --> 0:16:41.160 It just made me crack up. Um. The Honolulu Star 0:16:41.240 --> 0:16:44.120 Bulletin ran an article of its own in December nine 0:16:44.880 --> 0:16:48.400 under the headline microwave ovens put the space age in 0:16:48.440 --> 0:16:52.080 the kitchen and it offers, in addition to the article itself, 0:16:52.120 --> 0:16:55.240 a pictorial on just how fast you can make cake 0:16:55.360 --> 0:16:58.720 in a cup. It shows a user setting the time. 0:16:58.720 --> 0:17:03.840 It's like this four part developmental chronological pictures thing, So 0:17:03.960 --> 0:17:06.080 it shows the user setting the time like a close 0:17:06.160 --> 0:17:08.480 up on the hands, and then how the cake looks 0:17:08.480 --> 0:17:11.480 at ten seconds and twenty seconds, and then tenda done 0:17:11.600 --> 0:17:16.000 at thirty seconds. The paper's food editor, Betsy Ballsley tells 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:19.560 readers quote, I recently spent a weekend using a radar 0:17:19.640 --> 0:17:22.400 range for all of the baking and roasting I normally 0:17:22.440 --> 0:17:25.119 would do in the oven of my stove. It was 0:17:25.160 --> 0:17:30.359 a fascinating experience. Fascinating is a good choice of words there. 0:17:30.680 --> 0:17:34.160 It's not really committing to whether roasting something in the 0:17:34.200 --> 0:17:38.359 microwave worked out. Betsy, though, gives a really truthful account 0:17:38.359 --> 0:17:41.320 of for learning curve at first overcooking everything because she 0:17:41.359 --> 0:17:44.400 couldn't adjust to the speed. But she claimed that by Sunday, 0:17:44.480 --> 0:17:46.960 her third day using the microwave, she'd gotten the hang 0:17:47.000 --> 0:17:49.920 of it and even cooked a turkey quote to perfection 0:17:50.880 --> 0:17:53.200 in an hour and fifteen minutes. So that's a lot 0:17:53.400 --> 0:17:56.720 quicker than the four hours that would have taken in 0:17:56.760 --> 0:18:01.920 the oven. I still have questions about how me too. 0:18:03.040 --> 0:18:06.240 She's honest that anything that needs leavening is just not 0:18:06.280 --> 0:18:10.520 gonna work, but that vegetables convenience foods and leftovers all 0:18:10.600 --> 0:18:14.320 come out perfectly. Yeah, she's pretty balanced in her thing 0:18:14.400 --> 0:18:16.720 of like. I mean, she says that turkey was great, 0:18:17.080 --> 0:18:18.720 and she cooked a roast in there, like she did 0:18:18.720 --> 0:18:20.960 a lot of meats which I would not usually cook 0:18:21.240 --> 0:18:24.440 large meat entredes in a microwave, but she claims it 0:18:24.440 --> 0:18:27.879 went quite well. Um. These two write ups and many 0:18:27.920 --> 0:18:31.040 others like them, Alright, we're talking about them because they 0:18:31.040 --> 0:18:34.480 showed just how excited people were to have an entirely 0:18:34.560 --> 0:18:38.440 new way of cooking, and one that seemed completely futuristic 0:18:38.480 --> 0:18:43.240 and almost unreal in its speed. The word microwave dates 0:18:43.280 --> 0:18:45.800 back to nineteen thirty one. It was used to describe 0:18:45.840 --> 0:18:47.520 the short waves that are kind of at the heart 0:18:47.560 --> 0:18:50.280 of this whole story in its technology, and it was 0:18:50.400 --> 0:18:53.280 used to describe the appliance itself right from when it 0:18:53.320 --> 0:18:56.959 was introduced. But this method of cooking changed things so 0:18:57.080 --> 0:19:00.240 much and so quickly that by nine seventy three, so 0:19:00.359 --> 0:19:03.200 just six years after the Amana radar range came out, 0:19:03.560 --> 0:19:07.680 the word microwave was being used as a verb. Safety 0:19:07.760 --> 0:19:11.600 regulations have been in place for consumer microwaves for decades, 0:19:11.640 --> 0:19:14.800 so for example, you could put your candy bar right 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:18.440 next to your modern microwave while cooking something, and unlike 0:19:18.520 --> 0:19:23.680 Percy Spencer's experience, it will not melt unless your kitchen 0:19:23.760 --> 0:19:26.440 is incredibly hot, which is a situation I for sure 0:19:26.520 --> 0:19:30.600 had before. While the microwaves certainly won't replace the oven 0:19:30.720 --> 0:19:33.960 completely when it comes to making things like bread and pie, 0:19:34.400 --> 0:19:37.000 or the grill for things like burgers or steaks, it's 0:19:37.080 --> 0:19:40.280 just it's a everyday part of life for many people. 0:19:40.400 --> 0:19:46.080 I would say, every day a microwaves something, yeah, yeah, 0:19:46.080 --> 0:19:50.280 and Raytheon technology still exists, focused on aerospace and defense, 0:19:50.680 --> 0:19:54.000 although Amana is no longer part of the company. Amana 0:19:54.160 --> 0:19:57.959 was sold to Goodman Global in and then the company 0:19:58.200 --> 0:20:02.119 was split into its heating and cooling division, which Goodman retained, 0:20:02.400 --> 0:20:05.320 and its home appliance division, which was sold to Maytag 0:20:05.320 --> 0:20:09.720 in two thousand one. Whirlpool acquired Maytag in two thousand six, 0:20:09.760 --> 0:20:12.560 and a manner remains part of Whirlpool, still making a 0:20:12.600 --> 0:20:17.680 wide range of home appliances, including microwaves. Percy Spencer saw 0:20:17.720 --> 0:20:20.800 his inventions early success as a consumer product, but not 0:20:20.960 --> 0:20:24.199 how deeply it became a part of modern life. He 0:20:24.359 --> 0:20:27.359 died on September eight, nineteen sixty nine, which was two 0:20:27.440 --> 0:20:30.520 years after the amount of rador range had been introduced. 0:20:31.280 --> 0:20:34.280 And now we're moving on to our other invention, which 0:20:34.320 --> 0:20:39.440 is chocolate chip cookies. Who doesn't love cookies? Okay, I'm 0:20:39.480 --> 0:20:42.280 sure some people don't love cookies. I'm not going to judge. 0:20:42.320 --> 0:20:44.680 I don't get it, but that's fine. Um, But whether 0:20:44.720 --> 0:20:47.239 you like cookies or not, I think most folks were 0:20:47.280 --> 0:20:50.600 recognized that the chocolate chip cookie is one of the 0:20:50.640 --> 0:20:53.479 most popular bake treats to pop out of an oven, 0:20:53.480 --> 0:20:57.320 old school or even microwave. And like the microwave, they 0:20:57.320 --> 0:21:03.080 were invented accidentally. Maybe uh, there's actually so conflicting information here. 0:21:03.359 --> 0:21:06.440 But to talk about the rise of the chocolate chip cookie, 0:21:06.840 --> 0:21:10.040 we have to talk about the woman credited with inventing them, 0:21:10.080 --> 0:21:13.280 and that is Ruth Wakefield. That is someone we've gotten 0:21:13.320 --> 0:21:16.880 requests to talk about on the show before. I don't 0:21:16.960 --> 0:21:21.359 know if they would like how it goes. So. Ruth 0:21:21.520 --> 0:21:25.200 was born Ruth Graves and East Walpole, Massachusetts, on June 0:21:25.240 --> 0:21:29.480 se n oh three. She grew up in eastern Massachusetts 0:21:29.480 --> 0:21:34.160 with her parents, Fred Graves and Helen vest Jones Graves. 0:21:34.160 --> 0:21:38.040 She attended the precursor to Framingham State University which was 0:21:38.080 --> 0:21:43.760 Framingham State Normal School, Department of Household Arts. Graduated from 0:21:43.800 --> 0:21:47.840 there in nineteen Ruth had a number of jobs early 0:21:47.880 --> 0:21:50.720 in her adult life after she graduated. She taught high 0:21:50.720 --> 0:21:54.119 school economics, she worked as a dietitian in a hospital, 0:21:54.240 --> 0:21:57.159 and she even worked for a utility company and customer service. 0:21:57.200 --> 0:22:01.400 She managed their customer service team. But she eventually became 0:22:01.600 --> 0:22:05.639 an innkeeper. Really a restaurant tour that happened after she 0:22:05.760 --> 0:22:09.600 met Kenneth Wakefield and married him. Wakefield had worked in 0:22:09.680 --> 0:22:12.639 meat packing. He was an executive when they met, but 0:22:12.680 --> 0:22:14.679 the couple decided that they would like to run a 0:22:14.720 --> 0:22:18.320 restaurant together, so they bought a place in Whitman, Massachusetts, 0:22:18.320 --> 0:22:21.520 on Bedford Street, and they started there in in nineteen thirty. 0:22:21.880 --> 0:22:25.560 She had a very recognizable name, the toll House. In 0:22:26.480 --> 0:22:28.800 this house had a sign out front that read toll 0:22:28.840 --> 0:22:32.800 House in seventeen o nine, and you will see on 0:22:32.840 --> 0:22:35.720 occasion write ups that say that it was once used 0:22:35.800 --> 0:22:38.240 as a toll house and that it was built in 0:22:38.280 --> 0:22:42.479 the early eighteenth century. But that was apparently a quaint 0:22:42.560 --> 0:22:46.240 fiction that was cooked up by the Wakefields for marketing purposes. 0:22:46.800 --> 0:22:49.240 The house was really built by a man named Jacob 0:22:49.359 --> 0:22:51.960 Bates and his brother in law Lebas Smith in the 0:22:52.000 --> 0:22:55.520 eighteen teens. And it may have been on a toll road, 0:22:56.240 --> 0:23:02.000 doesn't appear to have actually been used as a toll house, right. Ah. 0:23:02.119 --> 0:23:05.280 That's you know, just just kind of adding to the mystique. 0:23:05.840 --> 0:23:08.240 This was to be very clear. I mean, you've probably 0:23:08.240 --> 0:23:11.200 already thought this a dicey time to open a restaurant. 0:23:11.560 --> 0:23:15.520 The Wall Street crash of had just happened, plunging the 0:23:15.640 --> 0:23:20.080 US into a depression. But according to Ruth, she and 0:23:20.160 --> 0:23:23.600 Ken had always noted the various disappointing things they had 0:23:23.680 --> 0:23:26.800 encountered when they went out for dinner, and they thought 0:23:26.840 --> 0:23:30.040 that they could do better. They basically had like the 0:23:30.119 --> 0:23:33.480 dream of the ideal restaurant their heads. So they bought 0:23:33.480 --> 0:23:37.080 this building. They renovated it, they burned through most of 0:23:37.119 --> 0:23:40.480 their investment money in the process. Ruth later said that 0:23:40.520 --> 0:23:43.040 they only had fifty dollars when they opened their doors 0:23:43.040 --> 0:23:47.520 to customers in August nine thirty, and after just a 0:23:47.560 --> 0:23:50.320 couple of days of serving only a handful of customers, 0:23:50.359 --> 0:23:54.679 that fifty dollars had dwindled in supply purchases and one 0:23:55.240 --> 0:23:59.399 really messy miscommunication where the Wakefields thought they had a 0:23:59.520 --> 0:24:03.040 large table of paying customers, and the woman who brought 0:24:03.080 --> 0:24:05.439 them believed that they had understood she was bringing her 0:24:05.520 --> 0:24:07.960 ladies group as a way to help them get the 0:24:08.000 --> 0:24:10.080 word out about their new business, and that it was 0:24:10.119 --> 0:24:13.240 going to be a compt affair. But within a few 0:24:13.280 --> 0:24:16.160 months it had all turned around. By Christmas, they needed 0:24:16.160 --> 0:24:18.920 to hire ten more employees in addition to the two 0:24:18.960 --> 0:24:21.800 they started with. By the end of the nineteen thirties, 0:24:21.840 --> 0:24:25.280