Cookers
and stoves
Domestic appliances in which heat is produced for cooking or for warming rooms. A cooker is designed specifically to cook food, while a stove can be used both for cooking and for space heating.
In stoves, heat is generated inside an enclosed space and is radiated into the room from the walls of the stove and the flue pipe. This results in better heat transfer from the fuel and food is cooked more steadily than on an open fire.
From Roman times bread has been baked in brick ovens, but other food was cooked over an open fire. The first record of a stove was in the 1490s in Alsace, France. It was made of brick and tiles, and burnt wood.
The first rudimentary cast-iron stove, which further improved heat transfer from the fuel, was made in 1642. Franklin laid the foundations of modern stove design in his 'Pennsylvania Fireplace' of about 1744, which incorporated a grate and adjustable ventilation.
In the 19th century, the cast-iron enclosed kitchen range (patented in the UK by George Bodley in 1802) replaced the open fire for cooking purposes. This had a central fire-grate burning coal, coke, peat, or wood, which heated hot-plates, a side oven, and often a hot-water tank.
Today, no matter the amount of flowery advertising the marketing professionals use to convince us how the modern gas or electric cooker is adding to the quality of our lives, for many traditional home owners the wish to recapture the pride in owning and enjoying the cast iron cookers our grandmothers used is on the increase Traditional cast iron cooker