Growing up, one book on my parents’ shelf obsessed my siblings and I above all others. It wasn’t The Joy of Sex, Valley of the Dolls, or Lady Chatterley’s Lover. This work was free of sex, violence, or scandal, but it evoked more gasps than any pulpy paperback. It was *The South African Book of Microwave Cooking—and it was truly shocking.
We spent years poring over it, never tiring of its cornucopias of grey “roast” meats, creamed oysters, and sweaty fish fillets. We grilled my parents about what the “toasted” cheese sandwiches tasted like, fascinated as to why these seemingly functional adults would do something as outrageous as cooking French toast in a microwave.
The gross-out factor was endlessly entertaining. But underneath the comic dry retches, there was something about the book that made me a little sad. It belonged to a part of my mother’s life that felt very far away and strange. A time when she was young, just out of home, freshly married, overwhelmed by adulthood. I pictured her buying the book, comforted by its promise that domestic goddess status could be delivered with the touch of a button, that she could have it all: a happy husband, well-fed kids, a busy career, fabulous friends, and time left over for herself. Decades later, I can’t help feeling it was a promise that went, shall we say, unthawed.
You might think I’m reading too much into a tuna casserole recipe, but microwaves have always represented more than a quick dinner. Since their conception in the 1940s, they have symbolized liberation from the stove. Primarily marketed to women (of course), they suggested that time spent tending pots and pans could now be free to do something more rewarding than making stews and baking pies. It’s not a coincidence that sales spiked in the 1980s as so many women fell under the spell of the decade’s obsession with fulfillment through work. Who has time to roast a leg of lamb when they’re trying to have it all? Easier to just chuck in some mini pizzas and get back to climbing up the corporate ladder.
In that sense, the microwave’s decline shouldn’t be a surprise, either. Their popularity waned as the new millennium saw a growing interest in nutrition, health, and “good” food. The appliance’s post-nuclear age glow didn’t shine so brightly in a world serving up Top Chef marathons and $22 Erewhon smoothies.