Ping! How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Microwave
In 2020, Nigella Lawson nearly broke the internet just by saying the word "microwave". The food writer was heating milk for mashed potatoes on her TV series Cook, Eat, Repeat when she said she liked heating milk in a mee-crow-waa-vay >, as if it were some sort of obscure but deeply sophisticated European food gimmick. It was a joke, clearly, but some people didn't get it and Nigella was forced to explain that she actually knew how microwave is normally pronounced. The following year, Nigella's music video saying "mee-crow-waa-vay" had become so popular that it was nominated for a Bafta.
The joke doesn't only works because the microwave is generally so undervalued as a kitchen item. It's hard to think of another household object owned by so many and rented by so few. In 2018, 93% of UK households had a microwave oven, up from 67% in 1994. Yet when talking about microwaves, it's usually in negative terms. We joke about "nuking" or "zapping" food, or we talk scornfully about "microwave dinners" as if the only real use for technology is to reheat cooked meals. American food writer Michael Pollan spoke for many when he protested - in his book Cooked - that "the microwave oven is as antisocial as the kitchen fire is communal". In a 2013 interview with the Guardian, Pollan said that “no one wants to get too close to a microwave. It gives them the jitters because of the mysterious waves that leap inside."
But if there was ever a time to overcome our distrust of of those mysterious waves is now, in times of skyrocketing energy prices and rising food bills.Microwave cooking is one of the most effective and economical ways to put food on the table Compared to an electric oven, Finnish researchers have calculated that a microwave saves 75% of the time and 80% of the energy when cooking for one person. are not quite as important when cooking for four, but are still quite enormous: by using a microwave, the cooking time is reduced by half and the energy by two thirds.
Yet I hardly know anyone who turns to the microwave as their preferred method of cooking. Most people laughed when I asked if they cook using one, as opposed to just reheating leftovers, defrosting frozen dinners, or reheating milk or coffee. I recently served a microwaved vegetable soup to two avid cooks in their twenties (easy: microwave 400g cooked vegetables covered for four minutes, add stock, seasoning and a little butter or oil, cover again and microwave for another four minutes.
In 2020, Nigella Lawson nearly broke the internet just by saying the word "microwave". The food writer was heating milk for mashed potatoes on her TV series Cook, Eat, Repeat when she said she liked heating milk in a mee-crow-waa-vay >, as if it were some sort of obscure but deeply sophisticated European food gimmick. It was a joke, clearly, but some people didn't get it and Nigella was forced to explain that she actually knew how microwave is normally pronounced. The following year, Nigella's music video saying "mee-crow-waa-vay" had become so popular that it was nominated for a Bafta.
The joke doesn't only works because the microwave is generally so undervalued as a kitchen item. It's hard to think of another household object owned by so many and rented by so few. In 2018, 93% of UK households had a microwave oven, up from 67% in 1994. Yet when talking about microwaves, it's usually in negative terms. We joke about "nuking" or "zapping" food, or we talk scornfully about "microwave dinners" as if the only real use for technology is to reheat cooked meals. American food writer Michael Pollan spoke for many when he protested - in his book Cooked - that "the microwave oven is as antisocial as the kitchen fire is communal". In a 2013 interview with the Guardian, Pollan said that “no one wants to get too close to a microwave. It gives them the jitters because of the mysterious waves that leap inside."
But if there was ever a time to overcome our distrust of of those mysterious waves is now, in times of skyrocketing energy prices and rising food bills.Microwave cooking is one of the most effective and economical ways to put food on the table Compared to an electric oven, Finnish researchers have calculated that a microwave saves 75% of the time and 80% of the energy when cooking for one person. are not quite as important when cooking for four, but are still quite enormous: by using a microwave, the cooking time is reduced by half and the energy by two thirds.
Yet I hardly know anyone who turns to the microwave as their preferred method of cooking. Most people laughed when I asked if they cook using one, as opposed to just reheating leftovers, defrosting frozen dinners, or reheating milk or coffee. I recently served a microwaved vegetable soup to two avid cooks in their twenties (easy: microwave 400g cooked vegetables covered for four minutes, add stock, seasoning and a little butter or oil, cover again and microwave for another four minutes.
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