Do you remember the first microwave ovens?

[chellej]

I just ordered a new Amana microwave for over my stove....the old one is starting to flake out.

It got me thinking about the original "Radar range" it was by Amana. My dad had an appliance store and when this came out it was big news and for us kids very exciting. As a demonstration, my parents made chocolate cupcakes in it for customers. They were terrible...weird texture baked uneven but as kids, we were so excited...it was like living in the Jetsons.

 

[MrockStar]

Yes radar range with a dial.

 

[MabelP]

We bought a Radar Ramge in 1981 for $450. It took up a large cornerspace on my counter. They were huge! Moved it with us to California, and was still working in 2002 when we did our kitchen over.

 

[DaveNV]

I remember going to a high school friend's house about 1970 or so. His Mom was the ultimate housewife (might even have done housework in full makeup, high heels, and wearing a pearl necklace. ) who had the newest of everything convenient in her kitchen. They had this monstrous microwave oven on the kitchen counter. I remember it being very loud, and practically made the lights dim when they turned it on. She kept having to turn the food container around, and stir things up, then turn it again. But it was scalding hot (in most parts) within a couple of minutes. I remember being very impressed, and my friend's Mom was immensely pleased with herself.

I bought my first microwave oven probably about 1982 or 83. Seems such a ubiquitous piece of kitchen equipment these days, I can't imagine how we ever did without one.

Dave

 

[artringwald]

My parents bought this monster RadarRange and it lasted longer than they did. They didn't have much counter space to begin with.

 

[Luanne]

I can't even remember when I first noticed microwave ovens. I'm guessing the first one I had was a built in. so it might have been in the townhouse my ex and I bought back in the 1970's.

 

[Luanne]

My parents bought this monster RadarRange and it lasted longer than they did. They didn't have much counter space to begin with.

View attachment 44971

That looks about the same size as the counter microwave we have currently.

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

I bought my first microwave oven probably about 1982 or 83. Seems such a ubiquitous piece of kitchen equipment these days, I can't imagine how we ever did without one

We got ours about the same time. I came home with it one day. DW was very suspicious about it; she didn't know how it did what it did and it wasn't among the cooking that she knew and used. It was probably close to a year before she started using it regularly.

 

[DrQ]

We rented one in DeKalb IL for a few months in 1980 before we moved and I went back to college.

Appliance leasing in a college town allowed us to lease it for a semester. It arrived brand new and we probably spent $75 to try one out.

We didn't buy one until the price had dropped from $450 to about $200.

 

[stmartinfan]

I worked in the food industry when microwaves were becoming common in home kitchens. People wanted to know how to do everything in their microwave…even the things that didn't work very well! I recall utility companies having home economists on staff that would do classes.

 

[silentg]

The first one I saw in a home was in New Orleans! When we stayed with a co worker of my DH it was 1984, and I was in awe of how he made scrambled eggs so fast. We had seen them in our office in the 1970s but they were more of an industrial thing. And the coffee maker was a push the button on which you wanted soup, tea, coffee, cream and sugar too!

 

[dougp26364]

My uncle, with 7 kids, bought one f9r his wife thinking it would be a big timesaver for her. After rubberizing a roast or two it became an expensive hotdog cooker and re-heat coffee.

My parents bought one several years after they came out. It was used to thaw meat, cook hot dogs and re-heat coffee.

I have one over the stove. It’s used essentially the same, thaw frozen meats and re-heat left overs. I no longer need it to re-heat my coffee as we have a single serve Keurig

 

[Kel]

Got one in 1978. The cost was $400+.

 

[rickandcindy23]

We bought a Litton double oven/ microwave on the top, regular oven on the bottom, smooth corning top (white stovetop) copper (brown) colored on the sides and back, when we bought our old house in 1977. I was one of the first in our family to get a microwave. The thing was $900, a full month of pay for Rick on the Denver Fire Department. We had it until 1997. Never broke, never a problem with any part of it, except that corning top yellowed terribly. Nothing I could do to keep it nice.

 

[clifffaith]

They had a microwave in the candy/coffee/sandwich machine area in the UCLA dorm in the mid-70s. My first apartment in 1982 did not have one, which makes me think if my mother had one she didn't use it very often because it was not something I was used to using. I have major irritation with the microwave at our new house because it has no easy peasy defrost setting. I pretty much have given up on it (it wants to know how much the food weighs, and maybe what kind of food I'm trying to thaw), where our almost new GE microwave at our old home you just pushed 11 seconds and the defrost button to soften up a slice of bread. I can set the power level on the new machine however and that sort of works as long as I keep checking on what I'm defrosting.

 

[PcflEZFlng]

First time we had a microwave was in 1981 when DW's grandmother bought us a countertop Sharp as a wedding gift. My parents still didn't have one until a few years later because my mom didn't think they were 'safe'. I remember seeing commercial microwave ovens in the 1970s at Seven-Elevens and other places.

 

[geist1223]

Back about 1982 my first wife's Grandmother was visiting from Canada. We had 1 child at the time. Shortly after she returned to Canada we received a check for $400 or $500 to go buy a Microwave. She had had one since they first became available and she could not imagine how we survived without one. It lasted until after the Divorce and may still be going.

 

[moonstone]

My first microwave was purchased in the fall of 1983 while we were in Florida on vacation. We had been looking at them at home but they seemed very expensive to us. We happened to wander into the appliance section of Sears in St Augustine one day and saw a Kenmore model very similar to the one we had been looking at at home for quite a bit (maybe $200.?) less than the Canadian price. We bought it and the couple we were vacationing with also bought one. I used it often, even bought many of the special microwave cooking dishes, and it lasted for many years.


~Diane

 

[Talent312]

This may surprise some people, but Julia Child had a microwave.
Here's a photo with the microwave on the left...

In The Way to Cook, Child wrote: "I wouldn’t be without my microwave oven, but I rarely use it for real cooking. I like having complete control over my food — I want to turn it, smell it, poke it, stir it about and hover over its every state." Child used her microwave for defrosting and melting chocolate and butter and even baking potatoes (she loved baked potatoes with lots of butter)." -- From Smithsonian Magazine