Speaker 1: I was like, I know, I was thank you know,
Speaker 1: I see tomatoes on the calendar.
Speaker 2: I know me too. I love I just love that.
Speaker 3: I'm I'm learning so much every day, which is like
Speaker 3: my favorite thing, and then just just sharing it and
Speaker 3: you're as crazy about this stuff as I am.
Speaker 2: So Oh my god.
Speaker 3: My name is Evel Longoria and I am my deraon
Speaker 3: and Welcome to Hungry for History, a podcast.
Speaker 2: That explores our past and present through food.
Speaker 3: On every episode, we'll talk about the history of some
Speaker 3: of our favorite dishes, ingredients, and beverages.
Speaker 2: From our culture.
Speaker 1: So make yourself at home, even Brichel. I am so
Speaker 1: excited as usual. Mike and I are talking about how
Speaker 1: every week we sit down to do these episodes and
Speaker 1: we just are so excited about the topic every time,
Speaker 1: every single time. So excited because today's topic is like
Speaker 1: food adjacent.
Speaker 2: It is you need it if you're a foodie and
Speaker 2: if you cook.
Speaker 1: But I've always been fascinated with like how things evolved
Speaker 1: into what they are today, and so today's topic is
Speaker 1: about the oven and the history of the oven.
Speaker 3: Did you have an easy bake oven? I wish it
Speaker 3: was my dream toy. I never had one.
Speaker 2: I didn't get it. I never you got you have
Speaker 2: a bunch of sisters. I would have imagined, well, that's
Speaker 2: the thing.
Speaker 1: I got the Flea Mark hand me down version, and
Speaker 1: you know it came with like one packic to make,
Speaker 1: like it came with like the one cupcake right that
Speaker 1: light would make and so I had to like actually
Speaker 1: make reels. I wanted to make real stuff inside of it.
Speaker 1: And it's not really strong enough for like repeat using it's.
Speaker 2: A light bulb.
Speaker 3: I mean, my dad was always paranoid that I was
Speaker 3: going to get that I was going to burn myself.
Speaker 2: He never got it, and it was so heartbreaking.
Speaker 3: But my next door neighbor had one, and I always
Speaker 3: every time I went over, I just wanted to do
Speaker 3: easy bake opan and she's like, no.
Speaker 2: Let's go for a bike ride, let's go whatever, climb trees.
Speaker 2: And I was like, no, let's bake. But I had
Speaker 2: that let's make everything in there.
Speaker 1: I put everything in there and it would never cook, right,
Speaker 1: But it did cook. I mean it was a proper
Speaker 1: little oven for two second it had this little light.
Speaker 1: Then yeah, I just felt like it was such a
Speaker 1: I don't know, it was such a toy that.
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, that's cool.
Speaker 1: It could teach kids about cooking, but it was really genderized.
Speaker 1: I feel I felt like it was only for little
Speaker 1: girls and you know, be a good wife and the
Speaker 1: housewife and go learn on this starter oven, so.
Speaker 2: You totally prepared for your life.
Speaker 3: Yes, and the marketing was definitely that it came out
Speaker 3: in nineteen sixty three. When we think about like nineteen
Speaker 3: sixties marketing, it's like the mad Men era, right, It's
Speaker 3: all of these men that are just coming up with
Speaker 3: this stuff. So it first came out in this This
Speaker 3: sales executive of a toy company called counter Products. He
Speaker 3: was inspired by New York City pretzel vendors and the
Speaker 3: little ovens that they had, So his development team designed
Speaker 3: a light bulb powered toy that would actually work, so
Speaker 3: you could actually bake.
Speaker 2: In these things. Yeah. And so because it heated the
Speaker 2: little I didn't heat up it did.
Speaker 1: I didn't think it heated up to three hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty degrees.
Speaker 3: I didn't think so either, But that was what they
Speaker 3: were saying, that it heated up.
Speaker 2: That's what it said.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's why my dad was terrified that I
Speaker 3: was going to burn myself and yeah, you know, but
Speaker 3: I know it wasn't very hot.
Speaker 1: I remember the reason I didn't get one is because
Speaker 1: it was a high price. It was like sixteen dollars
Speaker 1: back then, which was like am I for three months
Speaker 1: was twenty dollars or something. So sixteen dollars was pretty
Speaker 1: pricey back then, and it was that'd be like more
Speaker 1: than one hundred and sixty dollars today.
Speaker 2: Yeah, can't imagine it was that toy was.
Speaker 1: It was a curee success and it like sold five
Speaker 1: hundred thousand units in the first year and so they
Speaker 1: tripled production the following year. But I guess that marketing
Speaker 1: to the little girls worked.
Speaker 2: It worked.
Speaker 3: It totally worked because if the nineteen sixties, you know,
Speaker 3: they advertised it on Saturday morning cartoons and she was like,
Speaker 3: I like, you see, so of course you just want this,
Speaker 3: And it was like their slogan was just like moms,
Speaker 3: bake your cake and eat it too, and knew it
Speaker 3: was like pink.
Speaker 2: And purple, and the packaging.
Speaker 3: It had the little girl is baking and the little
Speaker 3: boy is consuming. It was very much like this is
Speaker 3: your role, so you know who's part of this ad campaign?
Speaker 3: So I turned this like mundane household task of baking
Speaker 3: into something into play, into play.
Speaker 2: I didn't even know there was a National Toy Hall
Speaker 2: of Fame. It's so cool. I want to know what else.
Speaker 1: Obviously this is for iconic toy is probably the Barbie
Speaker 1: and the Big Wheel. But the Easy Bake Oven was
Speaker 1: inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame because it
Speaker 1: sold twenty three million units.
Speaker 3: Eight I know it owns it now, hasbro owns it now,
Speaker 3: and now it's a little bit more democratic. It's not
Speaker 3: pink and purple, but there's some blue and some yellow
Speaker 3: in there. And they're boys and girls that are, you know, baking.
Speaker 3: So yeah, so it's just it has evolved with the times.
Speaker 2: I will tell you.
Speaker 1: The bigger deal that happened in our household was the
Speaker 1: day we got a micro way.
Speaker 2: Do you remember that? I remember that. That wasn't how
Speaker 2: a big deal.
Speaker 3: I just remember it was like, wow, wow, this little
Speaker 3: thing can reheat and my aunt in Mexico City would
Speaker 3: make everything in it and it was just kind of gross.
Speaker 2: But then it's like is this safe? Is it? It's
Speaker 2: just like but it was like a big thing on
Speaker 2: the counter.
Speaker 4: It was like, do you remember when you, because yeah,
Speaker 4: we it was my dad was excited about it, oddly
Speaker 4: because he you know, we lived on the ranch.
Speaker 1: We ate from the ground, so everything was made from scratch,
Speaker 1: and so when we got it, I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: but what do you cooking it? Like? I was so
Speaker 1: confusible when it came with a little cookbook and one
Speaker 1: of the first things and there was eggs, and so
Speaker 1: I remember my dad cracking an egg and doing the
Speaker 1: thing and putting it in there. And then and then
Speaker 1: it you know, changed, and we were like ah, and
Speaker 1: we wouldn't stand near it.
Speaker 2: Yes, we were like back away, back away.
Speaker 1: And because of that, of that, I never used it,
Speaker 1: and it really just was this black box in our kitchen.
Speaker 2: But my dad was very excited about it.
Speaker 1: And then later it kind of just involved to reheat
Speaker 1: the leftovers we cooked it.
Speaker 2: It was just the reheater.
Speaker 3: I feel like that's how it was in my house
Speaker 3: from the beginning, to reheater or something that you used
Speaker 3: to make popcorn, right, But that and I feel like
Speaker 3: we we actually talked about the microwave when we did
Speaker 3: our popcorn episode, so it the first micro microwave oven
Speaker 3: was called the Radar Range and it goes all the
Speaker 3: way back.
Speaker 2: To nineteen forty six.
Speaker 3: But it was this huge thing and it was super expensive,
Speaker 3: so it wasn't you know, it wasn't for home use.
Speaker 3: And these early microwave versions were used in hotels and restaurants,
Speaker 3: and it wasn't until this company called Raytheon bought it
Speaker 3: that it became smaller and more affordable. And this is
Speaker 3: in the nineteen sixties, but it didn't really become common
Speaker 3: until the eighties, which is when our families you know,
Speaker 3: got one. And it changed when cooking was supposed to be.
Speaker 1: The whole think about the culture in that moment as well,
Speaker 1: like you know, women are working, uh, kids are.
Speaker 2: Latchkey, like that was the other thing that we'd used.
Speaker 1: I used to we used to heat heat up like
Speaker 1: butt pockets or something, you know, when we got home
Speaker 1: or something.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it definitely transformed the household because the way
Speaker 2: society was changing. Society was changing and it changed like cooking.
Speaker 2: This until then, this whole idea of oh, cooking should
Speaker 2: take time and it should be this whole you know thing.
Speaker 2: What people didn't have time, so it's a sort of
Speaker 2: collapsed time. And this idea of speed, its speed became normal,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: And also the fact that it doesn't brown or crisp
Speaker 1: like that's that was that's my thing about not cooking.
Speaker 1: And my glass y egg is great. It's jelly like
Speaker 1: and it's easy to eat that out of the microwave.
Speaker 1: But that was why early critics complained about it, because
Speaker 1: the boot that you could cook in there was like
Speaker 1: pale or unfinished, and it just was not very aesthetic.
Speaker 1: So I think, you know, cooking is a craft too.
Speaker 1: I don't think the microwave really put a dent in that.
Speaker 1: But the traditional cooking that requires tending and stirring and eating.
Speaker 1: Those things still need that stuff. Like if you're making
Speaker 1: a fly, it does need to rise, it does need
Speaker 1: to you.
Speaker 2: Know, crisp on the top.
Speaker 1: And so but this like pressing buttons and something being ready,
Speaker 1: that was pretty liberating.
Speaker 3: It was for some people. It was liberating for a
Speaker 3: lot of people. It was liberating. For other people, it
Speaker 3: felt like of this loss of skill and this loss
Speaker 3: of ritual, you know, the time and the care.
Speaker 2: So that was just no longer there. So it was
Speaker 2: kind of an able ledged sword.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And like I said, as a latch geek itter
Speaker 1: like coming home by yourself. The microwave also supported this
Speaker 1: idea of individualized eating. I'm going to eat at six
Speaker 1: and you can eat it eight, and shifting.
Speaker 2: The idea of really the family dinner.
Speaker 1: And you know that it was like the TV the
Speaker 1: TV metal trays, TV dinners, what was it.
Speaker 2: What were they called TV dinner, TV dinners? Yeah, they
Speaker 2: were called TV dinners TV dinners, and in the metal trays.
Speaker 2: Then you would heat them up and I try to
Speaker 2: heat up on my easy bake oven.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: I was like, I don't want a cupcake, I want meat.
Speaker 2: It didn't work.
Speaker 1: But this kind of like moving away from the family
Speaker 1: dinner was was interesting and uh and it never really
Speaker 1: replaced the oven.
Speaker 2: It really didn't know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it kind of redefined in the eighties. It
Speaker 3: kind of redefined what counted as real cooking. It normalized
Speaker 3: convenience and normalized this individual eating.
Speaker 2: It just really changed everything I did. It changed the game. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I use it today.
Speaker 1: I only use my microw with today to make popcorn,
Speaker 1: which I know, which you shouldn't just.
Speaker 2: Because the bags full of stuff. Yeah, the bags I
Speaker 2: guess inside. Yeah, everything's killing I know. I always say
Speaker 2: something's gonna kill me.
Speaker 1: Let the tachin and valentina that I'm putting on a
Speaker 1: bango that I'm putting on the popcorn.
Speaker 2: Definitely that bag.
Speaker 3: Right, it's not the hole that I'm putting in my
Speaker 3: stomach with all of the acid.
Speaker 2: I just used them to reheat coffee. Oh yeah, I do.
Speaker 2: That's I do. That's but you know these look at this.
Speaker 1: This is my fire the fire King vintage cups. These
Speaker 1: are vintage and old because these are the ones you
Speaker 1: could put in the oven. So house in the nineteen
Speaker 1: fifties people would heat reheat their coffee in the oven,
Speaker 1: so these can go in the oven.
Speaker 2: No way, I've never seen those. We're doing a.
Speaker 3: What do you we're doing when of dinnerware. We're doing
Speaker 3: an episode of that next year for those of you listening.
Speaker 3: Eva showing me this beautiful coffee moth that's like Eric scent.
Speaker 2: If there doesn't go and everybody knows it.
Speaker 1: If you know that it comes in jade and this
Speaker 1: orange eor doesn't color. That's it's called fire King and
Speaker 1: it's a brand that that it was, and they had
Speaker 1: bowls and plates and because you could put them in
Speaker 1: the oven. Wow, I've never seen to the microwave what
Speaker 1: you can only find them like I'm eBay and vintage
Speaker 1: shops and I have a whole coat.
Speaker 2: This is what I asked for Christmas. When people are like,
Speaker 2: what do you want it?
Speaker 1: But go get so people give me like one cup
Speaker 1: one who what is it called again?
Speaker 2: The fire fire King, fire King, I'm gonna look for it.
Speaker 2: It's beautif.
Speaker 1: This revolutionized that the household in the fifties as well.
Speaker 3: Okay, oh my gosh, I'm so excited. Well let's talk
Speaker 3: about this idea of revolutionizing. So this time about when
Speaker 3: humans first started to cook with fire instead of just
Speaker 3: over fire. So this is way before the easy bake
Speaker 3: oven in the microwave. This kind of transformed life humanity.
Speaker 1: Really, I've always been fascinated with when humans started cooking
Speaker 1: with fire.
Speaker 2: Have you broat up Safety Safety and Nukins? Yeah, by Yvonne.
Speaker 1: Amazing book though, I mean dense, but like it's the
Speaker 1: history of evolution. And then there's like when fire really
Speaker 1: changed our evolution because we started eating meat and we
Speaker 1: started cooking our meat, and so that I've.
Speaker 2: Always been fascinated.
Speaker 1: And then I've always been fascinated because in Spain, one
Speaker 1: of the oldest Dumblans is there.
Speaker 2: I mean I went to a restaurant there.
Speaker 1: This is the oldest oven of Europe or similar, I
Speaker 1: never know, and it's a restaurant that the restaurant is
Speaker 1: built around.
Speaker 2: This old looking hole, right, and I was like that
Speaker 2: was the first Like what year was that?
Speaker 1: So I've always been like fascinated about about, you know,
Speaker 1: the history of cooking with fire, because we didn't used
Speaker 1: to before fire.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but what was it like a million years ago
Speaker 2: or yeah, like prehistory.
Speaker 3: I mean evidence of cooking over an opa fire dates
Speaker 3: at least four hundred thousand, but probably up to million
Speaker 3: years ago. And there sites like this Wonderwork Cave in
Speaker 3: South Africa, so just early people were eating or were
Speaker 3: roasting meats and tubers directly on embers. And so this
Speaker 3: idea of cooking with fire, using fire to heat containers,
Speaker 3: to boil water to bake and enclosed spaces that came
Speaker 3: much later. And there's like early pottery found in China
Speaker 3: dating approximately twenty thousand years ago marks this major turning
Speaker 3: point because this allowed people to boil, stew and extract
Speaker 3: nutrients in different ways. And we're going to talk about
Speaker 3: that more when we do our dinnerware thing because this
Speaker 3: idea of the oven and pottery kind of goes hand
Speaker 3: in hand, which is super interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's interesting because there's fire.
Speaker 1: Fire changed our species because first it was just to
Speaker 1: stay warm, right, like like.
Speaker 2: Okay, fire, We're just going to stay warm.
Speaker 1: And then there was an era of controlled fire, which
Speaker 1: was like, oh you know, because it was just you know, fire,
Speaker 1: and then like controlled use of fire, right, and then
Speaker 1: it was the evidence of cooking. And so it's so
Speaker 1: interesting how like, you know, if you look at these
Speaker 1: these anthropology studies and things like that, whether it is
Speaker 1: about pottery or the first dishware that they used to boil,
Speaker 1: the discrepancy because some didn't eat, some more just using
Speaker 1: it for like hot water and warmth, and then some
Speaker 1: were way more some species would made more advance. But
Speaker 1: the home or erectus to the neanderthal in to the
Speaker 1: I mean, it's crazy, it's been. It is so fascinating
Speaker 1: to me. You got to read Sapiens. It's okay, one
Speaker 1: of the best books ever.
Speaker 3: We're going to link to it because yes, there's just
Speaker 3: so much to learn from this and these are things
Speaker 3: that we don't really think about, right.
Speaker 2: It's like, oh, the fire. I think about this all
Speaker 2: the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that there was a fire that happened end and
Speaker 1: you've all's booked. It was like a fire that like
Speaker 1: burned the forest and there was remains of animals and
Speaker 1: they saw birds picking at it and eating it and
Speaker 1: they were like oh and that's how they found like,
Speaker 1: oh you could cook meat, but you could.
Speaker 2: Coascinating animals anyway. Yeah, it's so fascinating.
Speaker 3: So yeah, so by I know, it's what this whole
Speaker 3: thing is like, oh fire, heat.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3: Run and then oh but look, so there's by about
Speaker 3: ten thousand BC there were subtle communities and the place
Speaker 3: that you mentioned in Spain is probably one of these.
Speaker 3: There's also a sites in Turkey. So they were building
Speaker 3: permanent ovens. And then this really transformed fire from this
Speaker 3: open flame into something controlled and managed, turning cooking and
Speaker 3: simple roasting into something social and something cultural. So this
Speaker 3: completely created this shift in societies, right, It was just
Speaker 3: this shift towards agriculture. It expanded with people counted as food,
Speaker 3: you know, like you said, oh, like the birds maybe
Speaker 3: we're picking at this cooked meat, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: it was just it shifted like completely shifted society.
Speaker 1: Yes, and then it shifts to the like the actually
Speaker 1: early ovens, which were the earth ovens Kayla, like we
Speaker 1: talked about a lot in media and the Yukadan and
Speaker 1: the pits underground that are lined with hot stones and
Speaker 1: wood and then they're covered to trap the heat and
Speaker 1: that's that's how they slow roasted food for hours or
Speaker 1: sometimes twenty four hours, sometimes a full day. But just
Speaker 1: so these like tabe yeah, yeah, you know, to cook
Speaker 1: you know underground Hawaii, the Polynesian culture like all of this,
Speaker 1: like cooking underground hot stones. That really was the first
Speaker 1: evolution of the oven.
Speaker 2: And yeah, and there were the first evidence of those
Speaker 2: were at least three thirty thousand years ago. I mean,
Speaker 2: the earth ovens go back like way back. And then
Speaker 2: we have the ten door ovens that are you.
Speaker 3: Know later, these are like three thousand BC, and these
Speaker 3: are clay ovens that could reach really really really high
Speaker 3: temperatures and used wood as if fuel, and they gave
Speaker 3: whatever was inside a really smoky flavor. And so then
Speaker 3: it just became about, oh, this tastes really good, This
Speaker 3: wood taste really good. And then you know, in these
Speaker 3: ten door ovens, food cooks really quickly at a really
Speaker 3: really intense heat, so it sears the meat and then
Speaker 3: also keeping it juicy, allowing the fat to drip away.
Speaker 3: Lean proteins were made easier to prepare, and then they
Speaker 3: were able to make flatbreads and none, and so we
Speaker 3: see these like faster cooking but also like bold flavors
Speaker 3: and these interesting textures. So it sort of it was
Speaker 3: like first it was like, oh, yes, you know, protein
Speaker 3: and we could cook these different things.
Speaker 2: And then it was like, oh, but these things could just.
Speaker 3: Also taste really good and feel like feel good in
Speaker 3: your mouths, so.
Speaker 1: It's super And there was clay ovens. Clay ovens, which
Speaker 1: you know, made bread baking possible, which was a major
Speaker 1: diet shift because then it made grains a true staple
Speaker 1: and bread became very central to civilizations. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of but a lot of these early ovens
Speaker 1: used woods as fuels, so the firewood was abundant, and
Speaker 1: controlling sheet relied on on intuition.
Speaker 2: Yeah, adding adding wood to.
Speaker 1: You know, make it hotter and increase the temperature, letting
Speaker 1: ambers die down to gauge the temperature.
Speaker 2: I mean that was just all you know, I think this.
Speaker 1: Is right, then it becomes still I mean they still
Speaker 1: do in many parts of the world, but in Mexico
Speaker 1: in the north so on, they control the grilling of
Speaker 1: the meat based on wood and the grow going up
Speaker 1: and the grow going closer to the fire, the grow
Speaker 1: going up, and then that's how they those master.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think so like the masters.
Speaker 1: I don't know anyway, I don't know they're calling something
Speaker 1: the thrillers. That that grillers, the grillers who are chings.
Speaker 1: Those guys they do that. They control the temperature of
Speaker 1: going up and down. It's so interesting. What I found
Speaker 1: fascinating when I went to this restaurant in Spain was
Speaker 1: like they were like, this was the oldest oven in
Speaker 1: Europe or I forget where, and I was like it
Speaker 1: was the it was the oven for the community, like
Speaker 1: people didn't have a home of and it was for
Speaker 1: the community and that really helped social life.
Speaker 2: So like everybody would just cook at this one spot.
Speaker 3: Yes, many early towns, like from the ancient Mediterranean to
Speaker 3: Asia to Mesoamerica, people brought their foods, their dough whatever
Speaker 3: to a shared structure, a shared wood fire structure, and
Speaker 3: so in sits like Pompeii. During the Roman Empire, there
Speaker 3: was you know, we see these the public baking was common.
Speaker 3: There were public ovens and communal ovens required coordination. It
Speaker 3: required community. Some people gathered fuel, someone managed heat, others
Speaker 3: waited their turn, and sort of this waiting period became
Speaker 3: a time for conversation, for exchanging news, for matchmaking.
Speaker 2: It was like this for a time for treesement.
Speaker 3: Right, people were just chatting and getting to know each other,
Speaker 3: and now what are you making and what are you
Speaker 3: putting in this? And so you know, baking requires steady,
Speaker 3: retained heat. People often pool their resources, making bread a
Speaker 3: bread day a collective event rather than something private.
Speaker 2: So they not only you know, these communal.
Speaker 3: Events not only cooked the food, but they started to
Speaker 3: structure time and reinforced interdependence.
Speaker 2: So the opposite of the microwave, right.
Speaker 3: Community was literally built around the oven.
Speaker 2: It's like today you have a party. Everybody's in the kitchen.
Speaker 1: In the kitchen, around the barbecue, around the fried turkey.
Speaker 2: Exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2: It's the same.
Speaker 3: The people had changed, but we're exactly it's just what
Speaker 3: we're attracted to is is intrinsically the same.
Speaker 2: So when did coal.
Speaker 1: And gas, uh you know, enter the party and transformed
Speaker 1: ovens because that really changed uh cooking as a science totally.
Speaker 3: So yeah, like we were saying, for most of history,
Speaker 3: cooks judged heat by intuition, right the way it look,
Speaker 3: the way it sounded, the way it felt. And the
Speaker 3: turning point came in the eighteenth and nineteenth century and
Speaker 3: this is the Industrial Revolution that we just talked about.
Speaker 3: Enclosed coal and gas ovens allowed heat to be regulated
Speaker 3: and measured. So ovens where now not clay, they're now
Speaker 3: made of cast iron, and cast iron retained and radiated
Speaker 3: heat more efficiently and sort of. This combo enabled smaller
Speaker 3: indoor kitchens, removing the reliance on communal ovens, and this
Speaker 3: accelerated urban domestic life. And it also standardized recipes because
Speaker 3: temperatures became more predictable. Eighteen nineteenth century, huge cookbook culture.
Speaker 3: Now we start seeing like the brands and the stores
Speaker 3: and all of this.
Speaker 2: So it just changed the way.
Speaker 1: It also enabled smaller ovens, like smaller indoor It was
Speaker 1: just so easy because it was just you know, like
Speaker 1: the microwave was just a smaller that you could have
Speaker 1: in your house.
Speaker 2: So there's this.
Speaker 3: Guy named Benjamin Thompson, who is this American born who
Speaker 3: became a European nobleman. He's known as Count Rumford. He
Speaker 3: was this eighteenth century scientist and inventor, and he kind
Speaker 3: of transformed how we think about cooking. He was in Europe,
Speaker 3: started studying army kitchens and you noticed that open fires
Speaker 3: and traditional stoves wasted heat and fuel. And he applied
Speaker 3: this emerging science of thermodynamics and redesigned ovens and fireplaces
Speaker 3: to redistribute eat heat more efficiently and consistently. And by
Speaker 3: doing this, he showed that cooking could be measured and
Speaker 3: controlled rather than left to intuition. And so he was
Speaker 3: super innovated, and his work helped make kitchens safer and
Speaker 3: more fuel efficient and laid the groundwork for cast iron
Speaker 3: ovens and thermostats.
Speaker 2: So we thank him for the thermostat.
Speaker 3: We could thank him for the thermostet exactly, and also cast
Speaker 3: iron stoves and also enclosed ovens, okay. And this eventually made,
Speaker 3: you know, the oven became a symbol of modern domestic life.
Speaker 3: And in the later you know, nineteenth and early twentieth century,
Speaker 3: and this is when industrialization, urban utilities and advertising converged.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, so this really changed. He changed the game,
Speaker 1: because imagine an oven without a thermostat.
Speaker 2: Forget it. Yeah, so forget it.
Speaker 1: Well, I think something that really changed domestic life was
Speaker 1: gas lines. When gas lines and electricity, right, but that
Speaker 1: you could actually connect homes to these you know, gas lines.
Speaker 1: And so this was like nineteenth early twentieth century when
Speaker 1: urban utilities became a thing and cities like Blondon on
Speaker 1: New York, these these gas ranges or electric ranges were
Speaker 1: popping up in people's kitchen and it shifted this like
Speaker 1: sloky work site to just a really cleaner, mechanized space.
Speaker 1: And then that's how the uh that that nineteen fifties
Speaker 1: enamel range became, you know, this shorthand for efficiency and
Speaker 1: uh and upward mobility too, Like I still come it
Speaker 1: that uh that that old enamel range that was just
Speaker 1: so beautiful, and it became like this tool that symbolized modernity,
Speaker 1: stability and just like, uh, encourage a domestic domestic life.
Speaker 2: It was like the fantasy of domestic life.
Speaker 3: Those enamelal ovens that there's nothing more beautiful. And those
Speaker 3: actually when I first moved to La my apartment had
Speaker 3: one of those ovens, and it was the most beautiful
Speaker 3: thing ever. It broke down. My landword was like, well,
Speaker 3: if you want it, you need to fix it. It's
Speaker 3: like I was renting, and of course I couldn't afford
Speaker 3: to fix it, Like what am I gonna do with it?
Speaker 2: And he didn't fix it.
Speaker 3: And I came home one day and he had replaced
Speaker 3: it with the ugliest, like no name, like horrible thing,
Speaker 3: and I literally.
Speaker 2: Cried because it was the most beautiful thing.
Speaker 3: And so these evans emerged in the twenties and thirties,
Speaker 3: and they became this sort of stage to fantasy of
Speaker 3: modern life. You know, in these after the First World
Speaker 3: War companies like General Electic and Westinghouse and Magic Chef,
Speaker 3: they began producing these porcelain enamel ranges and whites.
Speaker 2: And soft pastels and super.
Speaker 3: Glossy They're so stunning, they're beautiful, they're practical, and they're
Speaker 3: also aspirational, right they're clean. Then this idea of this
Speaker 3: spotless white kitchen became a signal of discipline and hygiene
Speaker 3: and scientific class, uranity and class.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, we have the rise of the modern woman.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I'm saying about, you know, nineteen twenties
Speaker 1: and thirties saw this like marketing the clients is to
Speaker 1: the modern woman, and all this advertisements promised all this
Speaker 1: like leisure and elegance. If you have this stove, you're
Speaker 1: going to be, you know, more efficient, and it just
Speaker 1: suggested that domestic labor could be transformed into this like
Speaker 1: go Adams activity, if you bought this stone romance and
Speaker 1: what I.
Speaker 2: Feel like that sometimes I feel that way if I
Speaker 2: had that snow look at my stove. God, I know,
Speaker 2: when I walked into.
Speaker 1: That apartment, I was like, oh, I got this is.
Speaker 3: The most beautiful thing I've ever seen. And it also
Speaker 3: part of the kind of Art Deco movement of the
Speaker 3: design movements of the of that time period. These curved
Speaker 3: edges and chrome and these not these bold knobs and symmetry.
Speaker 3: They kind of look like giant radios or like automobiles,
Speaker 3: and it was sort of the same design as skyscrapers.
Speaker 3: It was this beauty equaled progress even during the Great Depression.
Speaker 3: So manufacturers understood that when money was tight, even when
Speaker 3: money was tight, aspiration intensified, and this enamel range could
Speaker 3: transform just a modern kitchen wherever you were, something that
Speaker 3: felt wow, glamorous, well cosmopolitan and.
Speaker 1: Then like so interesting because then because because the stove
Speaker 1: was no longer just utilitarian and it became part of
Speaker 1: the homes identity, there was a shift to you know,
Speaker 1: how advertisers sold ovens is like happiness and femininity, but
Speaker 1: also to the architecture and fore plans of houses like
Speaker 1: now the kitchen was a showroom and so they're in
Speaker 1: his company like ge and Westinghouse, and they would just
Speaker 1: fill magazines with this like bright spotless kitchens and a
Speaker 1: smiling woman was there during something on the stove and
Speaker 1: with her little apron, with her apron, it was just
Speaker 1: making you have a better life as a wife and
Speaker 1: a mother. I mean this was very obviously genderized advertising,
Speaker 1: but temperature dials, you know, were also framed as like
Speaker 1: scientific motherhood should suggest feel like if you had precise heat,
Speaker 1: you can make a perfect cake, which in tito make
Speaker 1: you the perfect wife. And so this marketing, this marketing
Speaker 1: was just you know, beautified domestic labor because of this
Speaker 1: technology which tried to tie a woman's identity and to
Speaker 1: to and her worse to that, and so it worked,
Speaker 1: you know, in the nineteen twenties and thirties. But then
Speaker 1: we saw, you know, a shift later on. I guess
Speaker 1: the timeline of Ovens bringing that restaurant esta.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Steep, that's my jam. I do love it. I
Speaker 2: do love it. I mean, that's my jem now.
Speaker 1: And also open kitchen, like you know, the wife just
Speaker 1: go away and make the cake and then bring it
Speaker 1: out and present it to the world, you know, to
Speaker 1: the kid to present it to her guest. Now it's
Speaker 1: like open kitchen and.
Speaker 3: It's almost like the whole yeah, like the community, you know,
Speaker 3: it's like the home is now in the community.
Speaker 2: So yes, this that's what now.
Speaker 3: I like, oh my god when I see like a
Speaker 3: Wolf or a Viking of it, and I'm just like, I drool,
Speaker 3: like I want one of those. But this is an
Speaker 3: interesting shift. By the late twentieth century, kitchen stop trying
Speaker 3: to look pretty. They wanted to look powerful. They started
Speaker 3: to look powerful, and brands like Wolf and Viking they
Speaker 3: helped redefine what aspiration looks like. Instead of these pastel
Speaker 3: enamel or white enamel and chrome and curves, they offered
Speaker 3: power and weight and stainless steel. And then the nineteen
Speaker 3: nineties brought the Food Network and the rise of celebrity chefs,
Speaker 3: and cooking became a performance and so it's different like
Speaker 3: restaurant ranges are built for super high heat, multiple burners,
Speaker 3: visible flames, and like durability over decoration. And when companies
Speaker 3: like Viking became and marketing true commercial style ranges for
Speaker 3: residential kitchens, all of a sudden, hotter, bigger, more metal
Speaker 3: became better. And it was this gender shift, right, So
Speaker 3: it wasn't oh, the woman clean, you know, it was like, oh,
Speaker 3: it became masculinized. The white enammel promised ease, and stainless
Speaker 3: steel promised intensity. So the feminized aesthetic of the kitchen
Speaker 3: of earlier decades was really just erased.
Speaker 2: It was just this shift.
Speaker 3: And also, of course the open concept really amplified this shift.
Speaker 1: And so that brings us to any this smart ovens.
Speaker 1: What's a smart oven? I've never heard from this.
Speaker 3: Smart evans are like this new thing, and they're connected
Speaker 3: to Wi Fi, so they're allowed you to control and
Speaker 3: monitor cooking remotely, like on your phone or via voice commands.
Speaker 3: The smart event has this promise that meals are perfectly timed,
Speaker 3: they're easy to monitor, they're guided by built in technology.
Speaker 2: I don't know, I'm I don't like them because.
Speaker 3: I don't I've never seen me. Yeah yeah, like, yeah,
Speaker 3: I don't like it for those part. It's too much
Speaker 3: of the future. Yeah, I want I want either my
Speaker 3: enamel an enamel stove or like a beautiful viking or
Speaker 3: maybe somebody needs to come up with some sort of
Speaker 3: in between. But yeah, this smartphone thing, it's smart oven thing.
Speaker 2: Oh, I don't know.
Speaker 3: They have everything they have they have refrigerators that are
Speaker 3: like that.
Speaker 2: It's it's just it's just too much. It's just too much. Well,
Speaker 2: what is your favorite thing to make in the oven?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 3: I I love to bake in the oven, but I
Speaker 3: would say that my favorite thing to make is like
Speaker 3: like a stew or like like a few weeks ago,
Speaker 3: when it was pouring rain in La, I made short
Speaker 3: ribs and this like oh, clicking something for hours and
Speaker 3: hours and hours and walking into the house and smelling
Speaker 3: the cooking food and the meat and that it just
Speaker 3: feels so cozy. That is probably what I love to
Speaker 3: make in the oven. Like a really like a like
Speaker 3: this idea of a super tough meat I made of
Speaker 3: meat that's just like falls apart.
Speaker 2: What about Yeah, I'm everything I do everything in the oven. Everything.
Speaker 1: Like I said, I would eat at my coffee and
Speaker 1: the oven if I could, and I can't.
Speaker 2: No, I love the other. The oven is like vital
Speaker 2: to me.
Speaker 1: Actually, oh we need two or three ovens, O this
Speaker 1: and that and then yeah, but like forget about it.
Speaker 1: Like me, I think we're roasting a chicken or a turkey.
Speaker 1: That's my favorite.
Speaker 2: Oh, roasting a chicken. Oh, that's so good. Thanks for listening, everybody,
Speaker 2: leave us some comments. Tell us what First of all,
Speaker 2: if you had an easy bake oven, yes, send us
Speaker 2: send us pictures of your.
Speaker 1: Easy bake ovens, and what your favorite thing is to
Speaker 1: cook in the oven.
Speaker 2: We'd love to hear from you. Yes, share your favorite thing?
Speaker 2: Do you cook lazag angela? That's meatloaf? What do you
Speaker 2: love to meet? Thanks for listening everyone, Thanks by y'all. Bye.
Speaker 1: Hungry for History is a hyphen media production in partnership
Speaker 1: with Iheart'smichelura podcast network.
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