An oven (plural: ovens) is a thermally insulated space or semi-room used for heating, baking or drying a substance and, more commonly, for use in cooking. Stoves and ovens are ovens that have been designated for special purposes. The stove is mainly used for making pottery and cooking food. While the furnace is used in blacksmithing sometimes, it has a large furnace the size of a room.
Historical information
The oldest ovens were found in Central Europe, dating back to 29,000 BC, and were used as roasting and boiling pits within the structures of a yurt house . They were used to cook mammoths in Ukraine and since 20,000 BC, they were using pits with embers covered in ash. The food was covered in leaves and placed on top, and then covered with earth. In the camps that were found in the village of Mezhirich, all the houses made of mammoth bones had a stove used for heating and cooking .
Ovens have been used since prehistoric times by the civilizations that lived in the Indus Valley and pre-dynastic Egypt. Settlements throughout the Indus Valley had an oven inside every mud-brick house in 3200 BC. Perhaps the obvious explanation for this popular use of the oven in homes is probably to use it for cooking food. However, ducts made of refractory bricks have also been found in the Indus Valley Civilization, which indicates that they used the kiln in construction as well. Among the other ancient civilizations that used the oven were the pre-dynastic civilizations of Egypt. An early form of black-rimmed pot was produced there when a stove was needed. This is another hint indicating that ovens were in use from 5000-4000 BC.
Culinary historians credit the ancient Greeks with developing bread baking into an art. Baking ovens were developed in their early stages in ancient Greece. The Greeks created a variety of bread pastries, bread shapes, and styles of serving bread with other foods. Baking developed as a trade and profession, as bread was increasingly prepared outside the family home and by specially trained workers for sale to the public. This is one of the oldest forms of professional food processing.
Researchers found the remains of bread at a site in (northeast Jordan), which turned out to be the oldest in the world and was prepared more than 14 thousand years ago. That is, more than four thousand years before the discovery of agriculture. This "extraordinary event" prompted scientists to search for a correlation between bread production and the emergence of agriculture. Researchers have discovered charred remains of bread prepared 14,500 years ago in a stone stove in northeastern Jordan, which means that the production of this vital food occurred thousands of years before they discovered agriculture.
Types of ovens
Earthen oven: An earthen oven is a pit dug in the ground and then heated, usually by smoldering stones or debris. Historically, these ovens were used by many cultures for cooking. Cooking times were usually long and the process usually involved cooking by slow roasting the food. It is also important to note that earthen kilns are among the most common objects that an archaeologist looks for in an anthropological dig, as they are one of the key indicators of human civilization and established society.
Ceramic kiln: A ceramic kiln is an oven that is built from clay or any other ceramic material and takes different forms depending on the culture. Indians refer to it as tandoor , and use it for culinary purposes. It can be dated back to around 3000 BC and is said to have derived its origins from the Indus Valley. Brick ovens are another type of ceramic oven. Among the most notable cultures famous for using brick ovens is Italy and its history related to pizza. However, its history dates back to Roman times, when the brick oven was used not only for commercial purposes, but for domestic purposes as well.
Gas stove: Perhaps one of the first recorded uses of a gas stove and oven was at dinner parties in 1802 hosted by Zachaus Winzler, where all food was prepared either on a gas stove or in the oven attached to it. In 1834, British inventor James Sharp began producing gas ovens for commercial purposes after installing one in his own home. In 1851, a gas burner registered with the Bower Corporation was shown
(Bower) in a big gallery. This would set the foundations and standards for the modern gas oven. Notable advances in the gas stove include the addition of thermostats that help control the temperature as well as the addition of enamel coatings to the production of gas stoves or ovens in order to help with easier cleaning.
Brick oven : Brick ovens consist of a baking chamber made of refractory bricks , concrete or stones or silt . Although wood or coal fired ovens were traditionally common in the 19th century, modern brick ovens are usually fired with natural gas or even electricity . Modern brick ovens are closely associated with the craft of making bread and pizza, but in the past they were also used for any cooking task that required baking.
Microwave Oven: An oven that uses microwave radiation as a heat source to cook food instead of a fire source. It was conceived in 1946, when Dr. Perry Spencer claimed to have discovered the heating properties of microwaves while studying the magnetron. By 1947, the first commercial microwave was in use in Boston, Massachusetts
Changes over time
During the Middle Ages, Europeans used stoves connected to large pots instead of earthen and ceramic ovens. These ovens were similar to the Dutch oven. After the Middle Ages, ovens underwent many changes over time from wood, iron, coal , gas and even electricity. Each design had its own motives and purposes. Wood-burning stoves evolved with the addition of fire chambers, which allowed for better containment and release of smoke. Another well-known oven is the cast-iron stove. These were first used in the early 18th century, when these same furnaces underwent many changes including a Stewart Oberlin iron stove which was smaller and had its own chimney.
In the early part of the 19th century, charcoal ovens were developed . It was in the shape of a cylinder and was made of heavy cast iron. The gas oven saw its first use in the early 19th century as well. Gas stoves became very popular as home ovens once gas lines were available in most homes and neighborhoods. James Sharpe patented one of the first gas burners in 1826, and many other developments included the AGA gas cooker, which was invented in 1922 by Gustaf Dalen. The first electric ovens were invented in the late 19th century, however, like electrical inventions intended for commercial use, collective ownership of electric ovens will only be a reality when there is better and more efficient use of electricity.
Recently, ovens have become slightly more high-tech in terms of cooking strategy. The microwave as a cooking tool was discovered by Percy Spencer in 1946, and the microwave oven was patented with the help of engineers. A microwave oven uses microwaves to excite the molecules in the food, causing friction and thus producing heat.
cooking
In the cooking process, the traditional oven is a kitchen appliance used for roasting and heating. Usually, foods cooked in this way include meat, casseroles, and baked goods such as bread, cake, and other sweets. In modern times, the oven is used to cook and heat foods in many homes around the world.
Modern ovens are supplied with gas or electricity. When the oven is part of a complete stove, the fuel used for the oven may be the same or different as the fuel used for the stove top burners.
Ovens can usually use a variety of cooking methods. The most common method is to heat the oven from below. This method is usually used for baking and roasting. An oven can also be used to heat the top to do the firing. To provide faster and more uniform cooking, convection ovens (also known as fan assisted ovens) use a small fan to blow hot air around the cooking chamber. The oven may also provide an integrated rotisserie.
Ovens also differ in the way they are controlled. More simple ovens (eg, AGA cookers) may not have a control panel at all, the ovens can simply be run continuously at different temperatures. More traditional ovens have a thermostat that turns the oven on and off and chooses the temperature at which it will operate. When set to higher settings, this may provide grilling. The counter may allow the oven to automatically turn on and off at predetermined times. More sophisticated ovens may have computerized control panels, allowing for a variety of operating systems and special features such as the use of a temperature probe to automatically shut off the oven when food is cooked to the desired degree.
Some ovens offer many cleaning capabilities. Frequently cleaned ovens have an oven chamber covered with a catalytic surface which helps break down (oxidize) foods that splatter over time. Self-cleaning ovens use pyrolysis (extreme heat) to oxidize dirt. Steam ovens may provide a wet absorption cycle to loosen dirt, facilitating manual removal. In the absence of any special methods, chemical oven cleaners are sometimes used or the old-fashioned method of abrasive is used.
Industrial, scientific and craft use
Outside of the culinary world, ovens are used for a number of purposes.
- The furnace can either be used to heat a building or be used to melt materials such as glass or metals for further processing. A blast furnace is a specific type of furnace which is generally associated with the smelting of metals (particularly steelmaking) using coke or a similar combustible substance as fuel, where air is pumped under pressure to increase the temperature of the fire.
- As for the stove , it is a high-temperature kiln used in drying wood, ceramics , and cement industry to convert mineral raw materials (in the form of clay rocks, calcium, or aluminum ) into a more solid form of glass . In the case of ceramic stoves, the material formed from clay is the final form, while cement stoves produce a material called coal residue which is pulverized to produce the final product of cement. (Certain types of drying ovens used in the food industry, particularly those used in fermentation , are also referred to as stoves.)
- An autoclave is an oven-like device with similar features to a pressure cooker that allows aqueous solutions to be heated to temperatures above the boiling point of water in order to sterilize the contents of the autoclave.
- Industrial ovens are similar to their cookware counterparts and are used for a number of different applications that do not require the high temperatures of a stove or oven.