Microwave Cooking and Processing

The general public first started taking notice of the microwave oven in 1975 when sales volume, for the first time, exceeded 1,000,000 units per year! In 1985, ovens were owned by over 50070 of U. S. households, and food compa- nies were developing microwavable products in earnest. During this period microwave product developers found that very little information was avail- able to assist them with their task. Microwave ovens utilized a technology that was completely different from conventional and weIl-understood cook- ing procedures. The interaction of microwaves with foods behaved in a mysterious fashion, and product development was, at best, guesswork and, at least, trial and error. This lack of knowledge of both the microwave oven and microwave-food interaction spurred the development of this text. Microwave technology was developed du ring World War 11 when the best scientists in the United States were cloistered at the radiation labora- tory at MIT. In the 1940s virtuaIly aIl the technology that could impact the microwave oven was developed and weIl understood.
The problem was in the translation of this decades-old knowledge to rules and techniques to be used for food product development. Early authors such as Puschner and Copson wrote texts primarily on applications to industrial processing. This knowledge lay faIlow as these texts went out of print.