Local Roots Blues, Brews & Evening Dining BBQAugust 8, 2014 (6:30pm-9pm, Dinner 7pm) in Greenfield Village PavilionThis is an extraordinary backyard-style event. |
The Henry Ford has a "tasty" collection of food-related artifacts that let us peer into kitchens from America's past. It is one of the best collections of its kind in the country.
Click on an artifact below to see how the foods we ate and the ways we prepared them have changed over the last three centuries.
1975
Radarange Microwave Oven
Amana Refrigeration, Inc., Amana, Iowa
2001.103.1
Gift of Edwin M. & Florence Harper
During the 1960s, the time and energy-saving microwave oven entered the kitchen scene, radically transforming mealtime all across America. Once people discovered how much faster microwaves cooked, heated up and defrosted food, there was no turning back. Weary adults could prepare dinner in less time after arriving home from a long day at work. Latchkey kids could easily warm up microwaveable food for meals or snacks on their own. By the mid-1970s, sales of microwave ovens exceeded those of gas ranges.
A variety of new microwavable frozen meals and other foods filled the shelves of grocery stores and the shopping carts of their customers. For Americans living in an increasingly fast-paced world, the microwave quickly became a practical necessity for an increasingly fast-paced world. |