How things cook

I found these funny cook book illustrations on the Old Books and Things blog. It doesn't look very wholesome, but obviously this was before microwaves and the atom bomb were invented.

Radiation cooking doesn't require physical contact between the heat source and the food.  With microwaves, energy is transferred by waves of light hitting the food. But infrared cooking has been around for a long time.  Basically, an electric or ceramic element is heated to such a high temperature it gives off waves of radiant heat that cooks the food.

This is the English AGA heat storage stove and cooker.  The heavy cast iron frame absorbs heat from a low-intensity but continuously-burning source that is used when needed for cooking.  

AGA's are heavy and slow, and can be tricky to maintain and use.  This technology has been used in Europe for thousands of years as a way to overcome the shortage of firewood.  You can still buy a AGA stove in England. They went out of style for a long time, but are considered shabby chic now. A new one costs as much as $20,000. 

Our contemporary furnaces warm a house by means of convection: they heat up the air.  Amanda and Tom's efficient new wood stove can easily raise the temperature of their living room to 90 degrees on a freezing day.  Whew! The kids can run around in summer clothes.

An oven stove warms by means of radiant heat, comparable to the heat of the sun. In a room that is heated by an oven stove, a thermometer can hardly measure anything.  That's why an AGA stove is never "off" and can comfortably radiate year round. 

The effect is like a Colorado skier sunbathing in spite of freezing temperature.  Radiant heat does not so much warm up the air as the body of the skier directly.  An oven stove acts in the same way as the sun: it heats the floor, the walls, the furniture and the people in the room. And the food.

Speaking of direct heat cooking, it's so warm out today I'll scrape the winter mold off the gas grill.  I just took a big steak out of the freezer.