My journey to the microwave alternate timeline

> It’s about staring blankly at the buzzing white box, waiting for the four dreadful beeps that give you permission to eat.

I thought it was near universal that everybody staring at the microwave was engaged in a game of chicken where you try to open the door as close to zero as possible while preventing the beeps.

The beeps must not sound.

I have no idea why it’s important to prevent the beeps, but it feels like a deep primal compulsion. Our ancestors must have learned that the beeps attracted sabretooth tigers or something

> The actual recipe section starts with the recipe for a bowl of cereal, which I am 70% sure is a joke

For years, I would get up insanely early and be the first in the office, with no-one around other than the cleaners. My breakfast every day would be microwave-cooked oats - but it wasn't quite as easy as the recipe from the book makes it out to be, mostly because of the milk.

Unlike water, when you heat up milk to a high temperature in the microwave, it behaves just like it does on the stove top: it wants to crawl out of the container and nicely spread itself everywhere.

So, I developed sort of a technique that consisted of short bursts of microwaving at full blast, then stopping and stirring, and back in with bowl. I repeated that a few times, but after I had the technique down, it didn't require much attention any more, it worked quite reliably.

The oats got cooked nicely, and thanks to the pectin of an apple that I also added in, it also thickened. (And in case you wonder, the apple's acidity does sometimes split the milk somewhat, but in most cases it doesn't.) However, there's definitely a difference in smoothness between microwaved oat meal and one that's made slowly on the stove top - the latter being much nicer in texture.

But it was a quick breakfast that I really enjoyed (with a dash of cinnamon) at my desk every morning while I was going through my email from the night before.

Restaurants are doing more of this than most people think.

Here's an article from the head chef from a commercial microwave oven company, on how to get more done faster.[1] Commercial microwave ovens have about 2KW-3KW of power, and some of them have true variable power, not the on/off thing most home microwave ovens use. "I’ve shown teams how to make mug cakes, molten chocolate brownies, and steamed puddings with just a microwave. The reactions are always the same: "I had no idea a microwave could do that.”"

[1] https://totalfood.com/revolutionizing-microwave-cooking-comm...

In 1986 I briefly lived in a squat in North London, and the gas had been disconnected. We cooked everything in the Microwave, and we ate nutritious and completely unexpected (to me) normal meals, like Lasagne made with dried pasta, which uses cottage cheese to boost the moisture content so the sheets of Pasta soften. I appreciate at this point some people are saying "normal??" but truly, compared to the alternatives, using a more liquid cheese to make a meal which conforms in all other respects to your expectations, was huge.

(gas reconnection was hard. Electricity, for reasons I never entirely understood, was easy to get reconnected to squats, at the time)

My co-occupants had a lot more experience than I of this life on the edge. I learned a lot.

Excellent article. "Tradwife futurism" is a brilliant term.

I'm worried I'm going to burn a hole in my wallet searching for a pyroceram skillet that I'll end up using for a week and then forget about it.

The microwave has two big related issues (both mentioned in the article).

The first is that it is not easy to make a mental model of how it works. The second is that since it takes little too cook the food, it is unforgiving and you have to be very careful with both timings and amounts.

This makes it hard to learn how to properly use it just by trial and error. Also since now we have inductive stoves there is even less reason to use it.

My pet theory is that, humans have an inherent desire to spent a certain amount of time dealing with food.

If our lives are to efficient, say because we do not have to butcher a pig and cure it’s meat to get ham, we start to become obsessed with all kind of strange diets from cocovorism to paleo.

I feel like 80% of the microwave's downfall was adopting VCR-like push button interfaces.

The two dial microwave was peak UX. Quick, painless, no wondering what sequence to press on a strange 'wave, zero time delay between input and cooking, and easy use of the (essential) power function.

The only downside is that it's slightly less precise, but getting the exact time down to the second is probably less important than you think. It's also a mechanical part to fail, but I've had microwaves die because the push buttons failed too, whereas my dial unit is still going strong. YMMV

I discovered a (lame) party trick some microwave ovens are capable of.

Many microwaves will let you set the power to 0% by pressing the power button then 0 or 00.

You can then put a cup of hot water from a kettle or the hot water tap in the microwave on 0% power for two minutes and it will come out colder.

Bonus points if you have a thermometer at hand.

Thanks Hacker News for surfacing such jewels, and kudos to the author for such a great piece.

Although I will never use anything of what I learned from this article, I feel a better person since I’ve read it.

In one of the alternate universe I like to imagine, AI slop doesn’t exist and the Internet is filled with gorgeous pieces like this one.

In the 1990s, the first microwave our family owned came with a small cookbook and I made an edible cake.

Does anyone knows if using microwaves might possibly affect the nutritional value of the food? Or if radiation can leak and act upon your body if you stand very close to it. Heated plastic doesn’t sound too healthy either. And why do we never see commercials about microwaves?

I know nothing about these things, but I still only use it to heat my cold cup of coffee - and I’m standing way back while I do :) I even own a pyroceram skillet.

Microwaves were invented to reanimate hamsters from hibernation. No joke.

Using an ISI Whip and a microwave to make cake is a well-known molecular gastronomy technique. Here’s one that doesn’t require the ISI Whip: https://www.seriouseats.com/microwave-rocky-road-sponge-cake...