I know it's not the point of the comment but it's a bit of a flawed analogy. Microwaves have wone to a large extent, such that people without them are a bit of an oddity, and cooking with an oven is more of a special occasion thing than the default cooking method that it was before.

> cooking with an oven is more of a special occasion thing than the default cooking method that it was before.

This is an incredible self-report. If you consider microwaved meals to be your default method of cooking and not something primarily for reheating leftovers or defrosting frozen meat, I sincerely hope you've gotten your cholesterol and blood pressure checked recently. That is not normal.

Interesting point! Is this an Americanism?

I’m from northern Europe. I might use the micro to heat up leftovers or a cup of water for tea or whatever in a pinch, but in this household (and at all my friends’), the stove and the oven cooks the food. I know literally no-one who could say they cook most meals in the micro.

I didn’t have a microwave oven before we bought a house. It took up too much space to justify, for such a relatively rarely-used appliance.

Definitely not going to dinner round your house

Most houses still have ovens. Microwaves are pretty widespread as well. But, their main job is to warm up food which was cooked in an oven (either locally or at a centralized oven in a food manufacturing factory). Microwave and ovens are mostly complementary tools.

Although, the analogy seems sort of useless, in that the food preparation ecosystem is really not any less complex than the program creation ecosystem, so it doesn’t offer any simplification.

Microwaves are for heating, ovens are for cooking. Obviously it’s possible to live on only microwaved food but it sounds pretty miserable.

Seems like a lot of people are dunking on this comment with anecdata.

Thankfully there is real data if we want to know how microwaves are used. Survey below says they are used a bit more than ovens, but half as much as cooktops/stoves. Varies by cohort and meal.

Source: https://indoor.lbl.gov/publications/residential-cooking-beha...

You don’t use pots or pans?

Ovens are a special occasion thing in my house because our oven is huge and I can usually do the same thing in the air fryer, which is just a small convection oven.

> and cooking with an oven is more of a special occasion thing than the default cooking method that it was before.

That really only makes sense if for households with a toaster oven, single adults, childless couples, and retired people. A toaster oven makes a lot more sense for small meals, in part because it can heat up much faster than a full oven.

Otherwise, a daily family meal isn't a special occasion.

Your social circles must be very different from mine if everyone you know uses their microwave for cooking, rather than just reheating leftovers.

They won at automating a task and becoming indispensable in the larger ecosystem of related tasks.

> [...] and cooking with an oven is more of a special occasion thing than the default cooking method that it was before.

Not true in my household, in my parent's, in my in-laws, or any of my closest friends'. And none of us are cooks, so it's not a niche thing.

I'm sure in a lot of households the microwave oven is the primary form of cooking, but it's important to look outside the bubble before reporting trends.