杏吧原创

Microwaves bring faster food

Despite all the publicity, cooking food by microwaves has not found very wide acceptance; but now the United States army is testing a microwave bakery that can provide fresh bread each day for 5000 men, and a microwave kitchen that can turn out 200 meals an hour. These new kitchens and bakeries will be able to move around with the troops 鈥� the first time company kitchens have been able to do so since the American Civil War.

Both the kitchen and the bakery use four 1.5-kilowatt magnetrons, operating on a frequency of 2450 megahertz. Cooking is said to be up to seven times faster than with a conventional cooker. Another advantage is that with microwave cooking the sides of the cooker remain cool: no thermal insulation is needed and the oven is much smaller and lighter at 2.5 tons. Cooking is cleaner and there is far less danger of fire. Moreover, dishes can be prepared in throwaway paper or plastic trays or dishes.

The morale of troops sheltering in foxholes may be expected to benefit greatly from the new cookers. Fresh meals will be prepared within smelling distance, and utensils will be incinerated by the oven after use or cleaned in an ultrasonic sink.

Morale may not be helped, however, if the name of the oven becomes widely known. It is called Speed, for 鈥渟ubsistence preparation by electronic energy diffusion鈥�. But a Speed kitchen being tested on trainees at Fort Devens, Massachusetts, is said to be providing the army for the first time with food as good as that given to the navy.

From New 杏吧原创, 14 March 1968