Weird Old Food Stuff

Mark Thorson said:

Here's a site which has lots of weird old
food-related pictures from magazines.

http://blog.modernmechanix.com/category/kitchen/

There's a button at the bottom of the page
for advancing to the next page.

I like the beer keg one..."AT LAST, science has done something really
worth while". Give thanks for modern science!

Mark Thorson said:

Here's a site which has lots of weird old
food-related pictures from magazines.

http://blog.modernmechanix.com/category/kitchen/

There's a button at the bottom of the page
for advancing to the next page.

My gawd I am a relic.
I remember some of those articles.

I like the 19668 ad for a microwave oven. Only $545. Back then I was making
$1 per hour at my part time job. If I had been working full time for the
same rate of pay it would take a month and a half to buy it. The last
microwave I bought cost me three hours pay.

"Dave Smith" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Mark Thorson said:

Here's a site which has lots of weird old
food-related pictures from magazines.

http://blog.modernmechanix.com/category/kitchen/

There's a button at the bottom of the page
for advancing to the next page.

My gawd I am a relic.
I remember some of those articles.

I like the 19668 ad for a microwave oven. Only $545. Back then I was making
$1 per hour at my part time job. If I had been working full time for the
same rate of pay it would take a month and a half to buy it. The last
microwave I bought cost me three hours pay.

That was a very very new technology - I saw my first one at the opening year at
Disneyland it was part of the "home of the Future" exhibit IIRC they made a
roast chicken in the time it took to complete the show. At that time is was
called a RADAR Range.

Dimitri

Dave Smith said:

I like the 19668 ad for a microwave oven. Only $545. Back then I was
making
$1 per hour at my part time job. If I had been working full time for the
same rate of pay it would take a month and a half to buy it. The last
microwave I bought cost me three hours pay.

I just had to page down to see that. I was very surprised by the brand. I
was expecting it to be an Amana Radarange, but it's another brand,
International. I had no idea anyone else besides Amana was making one back
then.

My grandmother just had to have the latest of everything, so she had a
microwave by the summer of 1968. Her's was the Amana Radarange. She was so
proud of it and she cooked hamburgers for all our family with it. She put a
raw ground beef patty onto a bun, put it in the microwave and cooked it.
Though it was amazing to see a hamburger cooked directly in the bun, there
was a flaw in the plan. The rendered fat saturates the bun. Not real
appetizing, plus the burger doesn't get browned. She ended up getting an
electric meat grinder to make her own very lean ground beef to try and solve
the problem. But she eventually gave up on that technique. I've inherited
that meat grinder and now use it to make my own ground beef... but I don't
use it the way she did.

--
wff_ng_7 (at) verizon (dot) net

Dimitri said:

"Dave Smith" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I like the 19668 ad for a microwave oven. Only $545. Back then I was making
$1 per hour at my part time job. If I had been working full time for the
same rate of pay it would take a month and a half to buy it. The last
microwave I bought cost me three hours pay.

That was a very very new technology - I saw my first one at the opening year at
Disneyland it was part of the "home of the Future" exhibit IIRC they made a
roast chicken in the time it took to complete the show. At that time is was
called a RADAR Range.

Dimitri

I remember seeing my first microwave at an air show at our local airport
(in MA) in the mid 50's. They "baked" a cupcake in...3 minutes or so.
I didn't see another one for about 20 years.

RADAR Range was an Amana trademark, wasn't it?

gloria p

Puester said:

I remember seeing my first microwave at an air show at our local airport
(in MA) in the mid 50's. They "baked" a cupcake in...3 minutes or so.
I didn't see another one for about 20 years.

RADAR Range was an Amana trademark, wasn't it?

There's probably a reason you would have seen it in Massachusetts, as the
technology was developed by Raytheon, which is headquartered there. The
microwave oven came about quite accidently when an engineer working on radar
magnetron noticed a candy bar in his pocket had melted. He was intrigued and
then tried getting popcorn next to it, and it popped. The next day he and a
colleague tried an egg... and we can all imagine what happened to that. This
was around 1946.

From that Raytheon developed the microwave oven. The first commercial
products were not very successful in the market. It was not until later
after Raytheon acquired Amana that a successful consumer microwave was
introduced by Amana in 1967. It was small enough and cheap enough
(relatively speaking) to be useful. "RadaRange" rather than "Radar Range"
was the name used by Amana. It alludes to the microwave's origins in the
radar world, where Raytheon was a big player.

--
wff_ng_7 (at) verizon (dot) net

Mark Thorson said:

Here's a site which has lots of weird old
food-related pictures from magazines.

http://blog.modernmechanix.com/category/kitchen/

There's a button at the bottom of the page
for advancing to the next page.

Well heck, everyone needs a gadget that will cook hot dogs in your car! And
what's up with that kelp/seaweed "bread"? Only in California... 😉

Jill

"Dimitri" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]

Quoted message said:

That was a very very new technology - I saw my first one at the
opening year at Disneyland it was part of the "home of the Future"
exhibit IIRC they made a roast chicken in the time it took to
complete the show. At that time is was called a RADAR Range.

My first was at the US Air Force Academy in 1974. They had a sign warning
anyone with a pace maker not to go past a point some distance from it.

RADAR Range was an Amana trademark. "If it doesn't say Amana, it's not a
RADAR Range."

--

Reply in group, but if emailing add another
zero, and remove the last word.

Michael \'Dog3\' Lonergan said:

Personally I like the all in one kitchen myself. I can't even imagine it
considering how small it was. OTOH, I suppose if you live in a really
small, one room efficiency it might be handy. I wonder how popular those
things were in college dorms.

I remember a fancy hot dog cooker that we had in the late 50s or early 60s.
It had a flip up top and a row of pointed metal prongs long each side. You
stuck the wieners into the a set of prongs and plugged it in and it cooked
the wieners. It worked, but the end product was not great. I always
thought wieners tasted better either steamed or BBQed.

Dave Smith said:

I remember a fancy hot dog cooker that we had in the late 50s or early
60s.
It had a flip up top and a row of pointed metal prongs long each side.
You
stuck the wieners into the a set of prongs and plugged it in and it cooked
the wieners. It worked, but the end product was not great. I always
thought wieners tasted better either steamed or BBQed.

If you want to get one, they're always available on eBay. It's called the
Presto Hot Dogger. Here's one that is currently at a bid of $0.99:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290104604610

This one is a later one, probably from the 1970s. The earlier ones looked a
bit different, with a red plastic housing. But they all worked the same way.

--
wff_ng_7 (at) verizon (dot) net

wff_ng_7 said:

Dave Smith said:

I remember a fancy hot dog cooker that we had in the late 50s or early
60s.
It had a flip up top and a row of pointed metal prongs long each
side. You
stuck the wieners into the a set of prongs and plugged it in and it
cooked
the wieners. It worked, but the end product was not great. I always
thought wieners tasted better either steamed or BBQed.

If you want to get one, they're always available on eBay. It's called
the Presto Hot Dogger. Here's one that is currently at a bid of $0.99:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290104604610

This one is a later one, probably from the 1970s. The earlier ones
looked a bit different, with a red plastic housing. But they all worked
the same way.

They still make them?
I had forgotten that they cooked the wieners so quickly. We used a few
times more or less to enjoy the novelty of it, but they were not very
good.

Michael 'Dog3' Lonergan said:

Personally I like the all in one kitchen myself. I can't even imagine it
considering how small it was. OTOH, I suppose if you live in a really
small, one room efficiency it might be handy. I wonder how popular those
things were in college dorms.

Hah! When I attended a well-ranked small college in the mid 60's we
weren't allowed to have ANY electric appliances in our rooms other than
a clock radio, a hair dryer, and maybe a small stereo. They were old
New England buildings with old wiring and couldn't take the current
draw. Oh, we also didn't have private phones. We had THREE pay phones
in the dorm for ~200 women. And we weren't allowed to receive or make
calls after 11 PM.

There was a soda machine and a cigarette (!) machine in the basement as
well as a laundry room where you could use your own iron. I was
severely chastised when, during semi-annual (unannounced) room
inspection, a popcorn maker was found under my bed. Horrors!

We were shocked when we saw our kids' college rooms with all the
comforts of home. (My son's freshman roommate had an espresso maker!)

People laugh when we say "times have changed," but in many ways, they
sure have.

gloria p

Dave Smith said:

I remember a fancy hot dog cooker that we had in the late 50s or early 60s.
It had a flip up top and a row of pointed metal prongs long each side. You
stuck the wieners into the a set of prongs and plugged it in and it cooked
the wieners. It worked, but the end product was not great. I always
thought wieners tasted better either steamed or BBQed.

Presto Hot Dogger. If it wasn't a copy, anyway.

The electric chair for wieners!

--
Blinky RLU 297263
Killing all posts from Google Groups
The Usenet Improvement Project: http://blinkynet.net/comp/uip5.html

Cindi - HappyMamatoThree said:

But how did they keep the refrigerator cold if the stove or
the oven was on? Hmmm seems like it would have been a huge strain
on the cooling system. But then again I am probably over thinking it.

Insulation? A few inches of cork would do it.

Michael 'Dog3' Lonergan said:

"jmcquown" <[email hidden]>
news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

Mark Thorson said:

Here's a site which has lots of weird old
food-related pictures from magazines.

http://blog.modernmechanix.com/category/kitchen/

There's a button at the bottom of the page
for advancing to the next page.

Well heck, everyone needs a gadget that will cook hot dogs in your
car! And what's up with that kelp/seaweed "bread"? Only in
California... 😉

Jill

Krrrreeeeiissstttt Jill. Don't give 'em any ideas. You'll be seeing
these lumbering SUVs and mini vans careening all over the road whilst
mom/dad is carting the children to... well... something. H/She'll be
yapping on the cell phone, making dinner for the kids (hot dogs)
while the kids are glued to the DVD player in the rear of the
vehicle. Of course operating the motor vehicle safely is a very
minor concern which only takes a very miniscule amount of attention
away from the more important motoring issues.

Personally I like the all in one kitchen myself. I can't even
imagine it considering how small it was. OTOH, I suppose if you live
in a really small, one room efficiency it might be handy. I wonder
how popular those things were in college dorms.

Michael

Yep, in an efficiency/studio apartment I could see that all in one kitchen
coming in handy. As gloria pointed out, they probably couldn't have such in
thing in the dorms in those days. Might come in handy now, though! Beats
cooking everything in a small microwave and/or on a hotplate.

Jill

Dave Smith said:

They still make them?
I had forgotten that they cooked the wieners so quickly. We used a few
times more or less to enjoy the novelty of it, but they were not very
good.

No, they haven't made them in about 30 years. Those on eBay are all
"vintage" ones. I believe they stopped making them because they were a fire
hazard. In the 1970s they really started paying attention to product safety.
I'm not sure, but I imagine if you put the hot dogs in and then get
distracted and forget, they'd probably catch on fire.

My parents had one (after I moved out) and used it more as a novelty thing
too. I'm not sure what they eventually did with it. It's not like there's
much on it to break, that's for sure. The heating element is the hot dog
itself! ;-)

--
wff_ng_7 (at) verizon (dot) net

jmcquown said:

Yep, in an efficiency/studio apartment I could see that all in one kitchen
coming in handy. As gloria pointed out, they probably couldn't have such
in
thing in the dorms in those days. Might come in handy now, though! Beats
cooking everything in a small microwave and/or on a hotplate.

I wonder if they ever put them into those motel rooms with kitchenettes? I
never stayed in one back in the days when these things were made. The more
modern kitchenettes I've seen all had full size appliances.

What I find interesting these days is Viking (and I presume others) makes a
small 24 inch range. I guess those are for people remodeling their miniscule
kitchens in older apartment buildings in NYC and elsewhere. I guess people
still want that kind of thing in an upscale apartment, even if it has to be
a "scale model"! ;-)

--
wff_ng_7 (at) verizon (dot) net

wff_ng_7 said:

Dave Smith said:

I remember a fancy hot dog cooker that we had in the late 50s or early
60s.
It had a flip up top and a row of pointed metal prongs long each side.
You
stuck the wieners into the a set of prongs and plugged it in and it cooked
the wieners. It worked, but the end product was not great. I always
thought wieners tasted better either steamed or BBQed.

If you want to get one, they're always available on eBay. It's called the
Presto Hot Dogger. Here's one that is currently at a bid of $0.99:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290104604610

This one is a later one, probably from the 1970s. The earlier ones looked a
bit different, with a red plastic housing. But they all worked the same way.

--
wff_ng_7 (at) verizon (dot) net

The Regal catalogue has one that cooks the buns and weiners. Pops
down like a toaster...."only" 29.95 Makes two..... What a laugh.....

Michael \'Dog3\' Lonergan said:

"jmcquown" <[email hidden]>news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

Mark Thorson said:

Here's a site which has lots of weird old
food-related pictures from magazines.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

http://blog.modernmechanix.com/category/kitchen/

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

There's a button at the bottom of the page
for advancing to the next page.

Quoted message said:

Well heck, everyone needs a gadget that will cook hot dogs in your
car! And what's up with that kelp/seaweed "bread"? Only in
California... 😉

Quoted message said:

Jill

Krrrreeeeiissstttt Jill. Don't give 'em any ideas. You'll be seeing these
lumbering SUVs and mini vans careening all over the road whilst mom/dad is
carting the children to... well... something. H/She'll be yapping on the
cell phone, making dinner for the kids (hot dogs) while the kids are glued
to the DVD player in the rear of the vehicle. Of course operating the
motor vehicle safely is a very minor concern which only takes a very
miniscule amount of attention away from the more important motoring issues.

Here in Chicawgo we are apparently getting city - wide
broadband wi - fi, one of the big concerns is that people
will be using their laptops while they drive...

--
Best
Greg