Oven

Oven depicted in a painting by Millet

An oven is an enclosed chamber designed for heating, baking, or drying. It is most commonly used in cooking and pottery. Ovens used in pottery are also known as kilns. An oven used for heating or for industrial processes is called a furnace or industrial oven.

History

Ancient Greek portable oven.

Settlements across the Indus Valley Civilization were the first to have an oven within each mud-brick house by 3200 B.C.E.

Culinary historians credit the Greeks for developing bread baking into an art. Proper front-loaded bread ovens originated in Ancient Greece. The Greeks created a wide variety of doughs, loaf shapes and styles of serving bread with other foods. Baking developed as a trade and profession as bread increasingly was prepared outside of the family home by specially trained workers to be sold to the public. This is one of the oldest forms of professional food processing.

The Greeks also pioneered sweetbreads, fritters, puddings, cheesecakes, pastries, and even wedding cakes. Often prepared in symbolic shapes, these products were originally served during special occasions and ceremonies. By 300 C.E. the Greeks had developed over seventy different kinds of bread.

Types of ovens

There are various types of ovens, some of which are noted below.

• Convection oven (fan oven, turbo oven): In a convection oven, a traditional oven is augmented by circulating hot air using a fan. Food warms faster in a convection oven because the moving air strips away the thin layer of air that otherwise surrounds and insulates the food. Technically, all ovens have natural convection currents, so it would be more accurate to use the term "forced-convection oven."

• Dutch oven: A Dutch oven is a thick-walled, iron (usually cast iron) cooking pot with a tight-fitting lid. A camping (or cowboy or chuckwagon) Dutch oven is typically made of bare cast iron and has three legs, a wire bale handle, and a slightly convex, rimmed lid so that coals from the cooking fire can be placed on top as well as below the pot. This provides more uniform internal heat and lets the inside act as an oven. Modern Dutch ovens designed for use on the cooktop or in a regular oven are typically smooth-bottomed and may be made of aluminum or ceramic.

• Earth oven (cooking pit): An earth oven is a simple, long-used cooking structure. At its simplest, it is a pit in the ground used to trap heat and bake or steam food. Earth ovens have been used in many places and cultures in the past, and the presence of such cooking pits is a key sign of human settlement often sought by archaeologists. They remain a common tool for cooking large quantities of food in places where no equipment is available.

• Kiln: A kiln is a thermally insulated chamber in which controlled, high-temperature regimes are produced. They are used to harden, burn, or dry materials, including wood (to produce firewood or charcoal), glass (for annealing or fusing glass, or fusing metallic oxide paints on its surface), clay (to produce ceramics), and ores (to extract metals). Some kilns are used for cremation.

• Industrial oven: Industrial ovens are heated chambers used for a variety of industrial applications, including drying, curing, or baking components or products. They are available in various sizes and configurations and can be used at different temperature ranges. They are used by many industries, including those involved in chemical processing, food production, and electronics.

• Microwave oven: A microwave oven (or microwave) is a kitchen appliance that employs microwave radiation primarily to cook or heat food. The microwaves, which are almost always emitted from a magnetron, (excite water (primarily) and other polarized molecules within the food to be heated. This excitation is fairly uniform, leading to food being heated everywhere all at once, a feature not seen in any heating technique.

Cooking

Modern oven

In cooking, the conventional oven is a kitchen appliance and is used for roasting and heating. Food normally cooked in this manner includes meat, casseroles and baked goods such as bread, cake and other desserts.

In the past, cooking ovens were fueled by wood or coal. Modern ovens are fueled by gas or electricity. When an oven is contained in a complete stove, the burners on the top of the stove may use the same or different fuel than the oven.

Ovens usually can use a variety of methods to cook. The most common may be to heat the oven from below. This is commonly used for baking and roasting. The oven may also be able to heat from the top to provide broiling. In order to provide faster, more-even cooking, convection ovens use a small fan to blow hot air around the cooking chamber. An oven may also provide an integrated rotisserie.

Steam ovens introduce water (in the form of steam) into the cooking chamber. This can aid the formation of a crisp crust on baked goods and prevent the drying-out of fish and casseroles. The degree of humidity is usually selectable among at least several steps. Some steam ovens use water carried to the oven by the user in a container; others are permanently connected to the building plumbing.

More modern ovens, such as General Electric's Trivection oven, may also provide combined thermal and microwave cooking. This can greatly speed the cooking of certain types of food while maintaining the traditional characteristics of oven cooking such as browning.

Ovens also vary in the way that they are controlled. The simplest ovens (for example, the AGA cooker) may not have any controls at all; the several ovens simply run continuously at various temperatures. More conventional ovens have a simple thermostat which turns the oven on and off and selects the temperature at which it will operate. Set to the highest setting, this may also enable the broiler element. A timer may allow the oven to be turned on and off automatically at pre-set times. More-sophisticated ovens may have complex, computer-based controls allowing a wide variety of operating modes and special features including the use of a temperature probe to automatically shut the oven off when the food is completely cooked to the desired degree. Orthodox Jews may purchase ovens whose controls include a sabbath mode automation feature.

Some ovens provide various aids to cleaning. Continuous cleaning ovens have the oven chamber coated with a catalytic surface that helps break down (oxidize) food splatters and spills over time. Self cleaning ovens use pyrolytic decomposition (extreme heat) to oxidize dirt. Steam ovens may provide a wet-soak cycle to loosen dirt, allowing easier manual removal. In the absence of any special methods, chemical oven cleaners are sometimes used or just old-fashioned scrubbing.

Industrial, scientific, and artisanal use

Outside the culinary world, ovens are used for a number of purposes.

• A furnace is used either to provide heat to a building or used to melt substances such as glass or metal for further processing. A blast furnace is a particular type of furnace generally associated with metal smelting (particularly steel manufacture) using refined coke or similar hot-burning substance as a fuel, with air pumped in under pressure to increase the temperature of the fire.
• A kiln is a high-temperature oven used in ceramics and cement manufacture to convert mineral feedstock (in the form of clay or calcium or aluminum rocks) into a glassier, more solid form. In the case of ceramic kilns, a shaped clay object is the final result, while cement kilns produce a substance called clinker that is crushed to make the final cement product. (Certain types of drying ovens used in food manufacture, especially those used in malting, are also referred to as kilns.)
• An autoclave is an oven-like device with features similar to a pressure cooker that allows the heating of aqueous solutions to higher temperatures than water's boiling point in order to sterilize the contents of the autoclave.
• Industrial ovens are similar to their culinary equivalents, and are used for a number of different applications that do not require the high temperatures of a kiln or furnace.

See also

Classical Pompeii oven

• Convection oven
• Dutch oven
• Earth oven
  • Tandoor
• Furnace
• Masonry oven
  • Clome oven
  • Horno
• Microwave oven
• Reflector oven
• Solar oven
• Stove
• Toaster oven
• Wood-fired oven

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Renfrew, Jane. 2005. Prehistoric Cookery: Recipes and History. English Heritage.

• Hamer, Frank and Janet. The Potter's Dictionary of Materials and Techniques. A & C Black Publishers, Limited, London, England, Third Edition 1991. ISBN 0-8122-3112-0.
• Smith, Ed. Dry Kiln Design Manual. J.E. Smith Engineering and Consulting, Blooming Grove, Texas.

External links

• How Self Cleaning Ovens Work HowStuffWorks.com.
• Ancient Roman Ovens Photos of ovens in Pompeii.

• Description of convection ovens from Wolf Range, Inc. (see page 5)

• Arkansas Dutch Oven Society
• Dutch Oven University Dutch Oven How-to's & Dutch Oven Recipes

• Recreating an Andean Earth Oven
• The Earth Oven or Cooking Pit

• Young International Woodfirer Association, an international association of people building and using woodfired kilns
• Northern Hardwood Initiative: Drying Hardwoods

• "Ask Mr. Microwave" Microwave Questions and Answers.
• Microwave Ovens — Questions and answers

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