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Comment by nonrandomstring | Hacker News Reader

As someone who loves to cook I think kitchen advances are somewhat overlooked, from pressure cookers to microwaves to air-fryers, IR ovens and all sorts of amazing combos, hand blenders and whatnot Time to make good home food got much shorter and more energy efficient.

Edit: showing my age, cos that's 80s, not 90s. In fact I think pressure cookers got popular in the mid 70s.

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Even since the '90s a lot has changed. Innovations in MEMS have allowed for much smarter rice cookers and the creation of the sous vide cooker, along with small air fryers with cheap, precise temperature control. Powerful DC motors have allowed us to have hand blenders, spice grinders, and food processors that take up little counter space but do their work admirably. The only reason I have enough time to cook as much as I do from scratch is because so many of my appliances are precise set-and-forget. My mom cooks a lot as well and I watched how advances in appliances changed the amount and precision with which she could cook.

I think the popularity of pressure cookers predate the 70s since it gets a comical reference in this old cartoon that you might remember.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_House_of_Tomorrow_(1949_fi...

I think that this cartoon was a play on a booklet from that era which the electric company gave out. It illustrated the grid and all kinds of possibilities around the home and farm for those who were not used to electrification. My dad had kept it around and I remember reading it when I was little. It had all the wiring plotted out like a Richard Scarry book. I have not been able to find it since.

Affordable thermometers! This is a huge improvement. No more food poisoning because your guess on the chicken being cooked enough was wrong.

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