History of Oven from Cast Iron to Electric – The Modern Kitchen Series

Ancient people first started cooking on large fires. The cooking fires were set on the ground, and later simple artifact construction was practiced to hold the food and wood. The early Greeks used simple ovens for making bread and other toasted goods. Taller brick & mortar grates were being often built with chimneys by the middle ages. The meal to be prepared was often put in metal pans that were hung above the fire.

The first written record of an oven being made relates to an oven built in 1490 in Alsace, France. This oven was solely made of tile and brick.

Improvements to Wood Burning Ovens

Creators started making advances to wood burning stoves principally to hold the annoying smoke that was being produced. Fire compartments were invented that kept the wood fire, and holes were built into the top of these cases so that cooking pots with flat bottoms could be put directly upon replacing the cauldron.

Iron Ovens

Around 1728, cast iron ovens started to be built in large quantities. These initial ovens of German design were called Jamb stoves or Five-plate. Count Rumford (aka Benjamin Thompson) developed an efficient iron kitchen stove announced as the Rumford stove that was intended for substantial working kitchens around 1800. But, the Rumford stove was too big for the standard kitchen and originators had to proceed to refine their designs.

Kerosene & Coal

Frans Wilhelm Lindquist devised the first sootless kerosene oven. Jordan Mott created the first working coal oven in 1833. Mott’s oven was known as the baseburner. The stove had ventilation to ignite the coal efficiently.

Gas

British inventor James Sharp invented a gas oven in 1826, the first semi-successful gas oven to arrive on the market. Gas ovens were seen in maximum households by the 1920s with interior ovens and top burners. The development of gas stoves lingered until gas lines that could provide gas to homes became common. During the 1910s, gas ranges emerged with enamel covers that made the stoves simpler to clean.

Electricity

It was not until the late 1920s and early 1930s that electrical ovens started to compete with gas ovens. Some historians credit Canadian Thomas Ahearn with creating the first electric oven in 1882. Thomas Ahearn and his company partner Warren Y. Soper had the Chaudière Electric Light and Power Company of Ottawa. But, the Ahearn oven was just put into service in 1892, in the Windsor Hotel in Ottawa. The Carpenter Electric Heating Manufacturing Company produced an electric furnace in 1891. An electric stove was presented at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893.  One significant change in electric ovens was the invention of resistor heating coils, a well-known design in ovens also seen in hotplates.

Microwaves

The microwave oven was a by-product of different technology. It was during a radar-related investigation project around 1946 that Dr Percy Spencer, an engineer with the Raytheon Corporation, discerned something very strange when he was standing in front of capable combat radar. The candy bar in his pocket dissolved. He began to examine and soon enough, the microwave oven was developed.