TigerChef

Ever stop and think what life would be like if there were no ovens, refrigerators, kitchen gadgets and food prep machines? Although kitchens have been around just about forever, kitchen appliances and gadgets came to be over the years and are still being upgraded as we speak. Here are a few of the most important kitchen inventions by the most brilliant inventors. We are forever indebted to them.

2800 BCE- Soap-like material is found in Babylon in excavated cylinders.

600s- The Chinese invent porcelain.

900s- Restaurants, known as catering food establishments, came to be. Guess where? Thanks again, China.

1679- Cookware takes a giant leap forward when a French physicist and mathematician, Denis Papin, invents the cooker pressure. Dutch ovens are brought into England and the Colonies only a few years later.

1742- Ben Franklin invents the open stove, which uses a smaller amount of wood than the fireplace. In addition, it is by far safer than the fireplace, as it  is in a closed-in area, rather than having an open fire.

1802- The gas stove came to be, but unfortunately does not become accepted until the 1880s, when cities begin setting up gas pipes.

1834- Jacob Perkins succeeds in getting a patent for his “Apparatus and means for producing ice and cooling fluids” – an ancestor to the refrigerator.

1858- John L. Mason creates the Mason jar- great for canning fruits.

1860- Kitchen flooring takes a turn for the better. Linoleum is invented. Flooring will by no means ever be the same again.

1880s- The Victorians come up with the word “gadget” and it sure is a smart one, since almost immediately there is  a surplus of them, including the peeler, the potato masher, the mechanical beater, food choppers, coffee grinders, lemon squeezers, and waffle irons.

1886- Josephine Cochran, a wealthy woman who threw many dinner parties, declares:  “If nobody else is going to invent a dishwashing machine, I’ll do it myself.” And she sure did. However, she is somewhat disappointed due to the fact that, until the 1950s, only hotels and restaurants use her invention.

1893- The first toaster is invented. The downside? It toasts only one side at a time and it doesn’t turn the bread manually. The world has to be patient until 1919 when the first pop-up toaster will make its entrance.

1908- The first standing electric mixer, a heavy and bulky ‘small’ appliance, is invented. Sunbeam’s hand-held Mixmaster will only make its first appearance in 1952.

1920s- American homes begin to get wired for electricity.

1927- John Hammes invents the garbage disposal, initially for his wife. After 11 years of hard work, the InSinkErator came to be.

1928- Sliced and packaged bread is introduced. It is caught up so well that every invention thereafter becomes “the greatest thing since sliced bread.”

1945- An engineer named Percy Spencer notices that the peanut-chocolate bar in his pocket has melted after he tinkered with his radar set - and the microwave oven is born.

1952- Coffee lovers -  this one is for you. Although the electric kettle was invented in 1922, this is the year that Russell Hobbs invents the percolator.

1963- Women breathe a sigh of relief! Thank you, General Electric, for introducing self-cleaning ovens to us.

1973- Carl Sontheimer combines his proficiency in electronics with cooking and produces a home adaptation of restaurant food prep machines. Cuisinart food processor makes a grand entrance.

1978- The GPS navigational system is invented.  Over thirty years later and we are still praying for someone to come up with some kind of system that will allow us to locate the bottle of ketchup that I can swear is in the refrigerated- somewhere.

1980s- Induction cooking surfaces appear on the market. Induction burners are neither gas nor electricity. They are electromagnetic fields that transmit energy to a metal pot, which in turn, causes the pot to heat up. Even though it has taken a nice amount of time for induction stovetops to take hold, they are claimed to be the future, superseding gas and electric stovetops.

Filed under: History • General

Tags: kitchen history