Modern Oven

For many of us, our oven is a familiar staple in the kitchen. Even if you’re not a keen baker, you’re likely to use your oven for family roasts, reheating leftovers, or even warming breakfast. Since the oven is such an essential part of the kitchen, it can be easy to overlook, and many of us have given very little thought to how the domestic oven evolved. So, here we’ll delve into a brief history of the domestic oven. Modest Beginnings Across different civilizations, stone was used to cook foods. In many areas of the world, including the Mediterranean and throughout the Roman Empire, stone was used to contain flame and provide heat to cook food. Typically, wood was used to feed the fire within the enclosure to roast meat and bake bread. This method of cooking differed from the open air fire, which was used to boil water and make soup. Containing the heat was the primary goal of the oven, and this allowed for different types of cooking. Despite the advancements over the years, the basic function of these ancient ovens has remained. The European Influence When the Europeans arrived in America, the traditional stone stove had an upgrade. Colonial homemakers had ventilated brick ovens to cook foods and feed their families. While these ovens lacked the control knobs that we have on modern ovens, they essentially had the same function. Oven users of this time needed to manually add and remove fuel, typically wood, to stoke the