I remember hearing about how my cooking and indeed potentially my entire existence was going to change with the advent of this portable nuclear reactor that could be purchased legally and utilised in a domestic kitchen setting.
Frank Tuttle asks "When did the Microwave oven get so slow?"
Like the world weary war correspondent, I was there at the early days. I remember hearing about how my cooking and indeed potentially my entire existence was going to change with the advent of this portable nuclear reactor that could be purchased legally and utilised in a domestic kitchen setting. Like many of the faithful, I returned home from my local temple of all things electronic and domestic with this new cooking revelation - the microwave oven.
It certainly seemed simple enough; put something in the box, turn the dial, hit a large button and then stand back - after all, we had already all heard about how the escaping "waves" from the box would cause any number of dreadful ailments. However, inside the box, miraculous things were happening. Microwaves were being blasted around and heating the object. I use the word "heating" rather than "cooking" in the same way I would not refer to a chocolate ice-cream stain on a rug as "art" - although Pro Hart may disagree, but we can discuss modern art another time.
So there we were. A hot object on offer that used to be some kind of product that would have formally been known as a food substance prior to its nuclear transformation. Once again I am reminded of a significant scene from the movie The Fly. But that is not as important right now. To try and restore the hot object into something we could define as food, any number of advances were made with regard to wrapping things in special paper or putting things in, on or over devices that were subsequently put in the box. The box itself also went through dramatic advancements; more buttons, a clock, built in recipes (a kind of power of suggestion or wishful thinking element) and of course the most modern of advancements that we have seen recently - a stainless-steel "style" external finish.
Something that I am yet to understand is why it is not possible to obtain a reverse-cycle microwave box. Now I'll admit that my studies of nuclear physics are not as current as some and really the concept of a Fax machine still makes me stand back and rub my chin like my father used to when looking under the bonnet of a car with less than eight cylinders - a bemused look of wonder perhaps. However, if the basic principal of the microwave box is to excite particles thus generating heat, why would it not be possible to retard or dare I suggest "bore" the particles into slowing down, surely resulting in the cooling of the object.
I think there would be obvious benefit to such a box. No ice? Just pop the ice tray into the box, set it to cool for a minute and there you go; a tray of ice. Of course the ice cubes would still be watery in the middle, but they would go nicely with my tepid ice tea and meat pie that is burning hot on the outside and frozen in the middle. Now if I could just find my Geiger-counter...
Submitted by Frank on August 01, 2005.
