Toaster
A toaster is an electrical device used to toast bread , especially toasted bread .
etymology
At the beginning of electric bread toasting, toasters were still called bread toasters . The word toaster was not borrowed from American English into German until 1970 , and the verb toast also became common. In English the verb to toast means " toast ". It was borrowed from the old French , where toster means “ toast , roast, grill”, which in turn comes from late Latin . There tostare means “to dry”, and in Latin tostum the past participle is passive to torrere “to dry, roast”.
history
Toasting bread has a long tradition. Early on, as early as ancient Egypt , bread was made more durable by removing moisture - namely, held over an open fire. The Romans passed on their love of toasted bread to other European cultures during their conquests in Europe. The English brought the preference to America.
In North America (Canada) there is still the so-called Yukon furnace - an iron cannon furnace - in remote areas . Often there is no electricity and a toaster cannot be operated. Here you can help yourself by simply sticking the toast slice to the hot outer wall of the oven. When it falls off, the slice of bread is finished toast.
In the days before electricity , for example, bread was placed on a hot stone or held over an open fire with the help of simple long forks or skewers; from the 19th century there were more complex mechanisms with stands and turning options.
Start of electrification
At the end of the 19th century, electrification made rapid progress in the USA , households in large cities were connected to the first power stations, and only a little later in Europe . It quickly became clear that electricity could not only generate light but also heat , as can be seen in every light bulb. The first electrical household appliances were hot plates and irons .
The incandescent lamp only works because the filament is operated in an evacuated or oxygen-free room. Only a second discovery made it possible to develop an electric bread toaster in which the heating wires come into contact with air. In 1906 Albert L. Marsh received the patent for the chrome-nickel alloy Chromel . For the first time, it allowed the production of heating wires that do not rust and guarantee a long service life.
Invention of the toaster
Just six weeks after Marsh applied for his patent, several months before the patent was granted for Marsh, George Schneider, who was then employed by the American Electric Heater Co. of Detroit , applied for the first patent for a toaster ( heating conductor of suitable resistance wire ). However, this toaster was never produced in large numbers.
In all likelihood, there were some early toaster prototypes, devices that were assembled in small firms or even garage companies that never came out in large numbers. In the early days of electrification, sockets were in short supply. In the first place, electricity was intended for the use of light and not for the supply of electrical household appliances. This is why the first electric toasters often had plugs that were turned into lamp sockets in order to be supplied with electricity. These plugs are called so-called round plugs.
It wasn't until 1908 that the first commercially successful and still known toaster was patented and then produced in 1909. Frank Shailor, an employee of General Electric , was granted a patent for a toaster with the name D-12. The first version of this toaster had very high wire rack baskets into which the bread was put. This type of toaster is now called a plug-in toaster. The toast had to be turned manually so that both sides could be toasted. In order to remove the toast, a certain tact was required, because it was very easy to burn your fingers on the wire frame. That is why the two following versions of the D-12 were also designed with lower wire baskets open to the side. So the risk of getting burned was no longer that great. You could now push the bread out to the side. All D-12 toasters had a white porcelain base . For a surcharge, the bases of these toasters were decorated by hand with decorative lines and colorful floral decorations.
Almost at the same time as the D-12 toaster, but a little later, another early toaster was patented, the Simplex T-211. The toaster was produced by Simplex Electric Heating Co. in Boston and is considered the first folding toaster. The toaster had a black ceramic base and two hinged side doors that could be opened and even removed completely.
Another early toaster was patented in England in 1908. The so-called Bastian Heater is known as a hanging toaster. The toast was placed in a bread basket, which was then hung manually in the toaster and removed again manually after toasting. A new invention by the Bastian company was already used here: the heating wires, which at that time still contained iron components, were protected from corrosion by quartz tubes.
At the same time, another invention was made that influenced the design of toasters, the fireproof and hard plastic Bakelite . In the late 1920s, the Catalin material was also used in the production of toasters.
The flatbed toaster was also invented very early. Here, as with a grill, the toast slices were placed horizontally on a grid. Some of these flat bed toasters were also equipped with turning devices so that the toast did not have to be turned by hand on the flat bed toaster. With the so-called slide-in toasters, the toast was placed vertically or horizontally in a drawer. This drawer was then slid into the toaster.
A relatively simple innovation helped the folding toaster to increase its popularity. By changing the construction, usually with small slides attached to the side, the toast was automatically turned when the flap was opened and when it slipped out. When the flap was closed again, it was then roasted from the other side. These toasters are known today as reversible toasters.
In the 20s to 30s, resourceful inventors then gave a lot of thought to technical ways to improve bread toasting. Particular attention was paid to the ways in which the toast can be turned as comfortably as possible. But the toaster itself was also decorated as interestingly and lavishly as possible. Relatively low production costs and a certain love of technology have resulted in numerous interesting toasters and bread-turning mechanisms. The so-called rotating toasters are worth mentioning, for example: The mechanism of this toaster allows the bread baskets into which the toast was placed to be rotated around the longitudinal, central or side axis with the help of a handle or a crank, so that the toast can be the second side could be roasted without having to be removed from the bread basket. The carousel toasters are a special form of the so-called rotary toaster. These are toasters in which four bread baskets are usually arranged around an axis. The toasts are placed in the doors that can be moved around an axis. After the roasting process, these doors are turned so that the toasts can also be roasted from the other side.
Until about 1925, most models in Europe were produced under license from American toasters. The German company AEG has been producing the Simplex T-211 in almost unchanged form since 1912. The Rowenta company has also been producing a toaster (the Rowenta E 5003) since around 1915, which looked very similar to the Simplex T-211. The Swiss company Therma had been producing a toaster since 1916, which was patented by the American Electric Heating Co. in 1914. In the following years more and more own constructions were realized in Europe. From the beginning of the development of the electric toaster until the 1930s, the most interesting toasters with fascinating mechanisms for turning the toast slices were invented. In contrast to America, however, toasters were not produced in very large numbers in Europe. The initially high electricity prices and high prices for electrical devices, but also an initially great skepticism about the new technology prevented its rapid spread. The new technology was only slowly gaining a foothold. In Germany, electrification has progressed rapidly since 1920. Toasters could only be produced in larger quantities when electricity was available to a broad section of the population and the sales market was therefore large enough.
During this time, numerous small companies were established which produced electrical appliances. However, these disappeared again during the global economic crisis . The Second World War also brought about extensive changes in Europe . Production facilities and materials were primarily only used for war purposes. In Germany in particular, there was practically no household appliance production.
Fully automatic toaster
The toasters described so far had one thing in common: the roasting time had to be controlled by yourself and the toast had to be removed manually. This often caused the bread slices to burn in the toaster if they weren't turned in time. However, during World War I , Charles Strite, a mechanic at a plant in Stillwater , Minnesota , was working on a variable timer and applied for the patent for the first pop-up toaster in May 1919.
The first pop-up toaster for the mass market was produced by Toastmaster in 1926. This had a time limit control for the desired degree of browning and when the toast reached the preselected state it was vigorously pushed out. This toaster generated so much public interest that March 1927 was declared the national toaster month and the advertisement promised, “This amazing new invention will toast the perfect toast every time! Without turning! Without burning! ”The first automatic toaster was established.
Even after this invention, which at the time quickly caught on and the main function has hardly been changed until today, some interesting toaster ideas were still implemented. The world's first drive-through toaster is the Toast-O-Lator . This toaster was manufactured in America from 1936 to approx. 1952. This device is a toaster with a conveyor belt principle . The toast is pushed in on one side of the toaster and then automatically moved through to the other side. The toasted bread is pushed further in the toaster step by step by rotating saw teeth. Heating wires inside ensure that the bread is toasted. After a short time, the toasted bread falls out of the toaster.
The LAVA T01 single-slice semi-automatic toasting device also pushes the bread out sideways on a rail - but it does not fall down.
With the so-called pop-down toaster, the toast is placed in the toaster from above. After a certain toasting time, the toast is thrown downwards out of the toaster.
In the course of time, a few other toasting mechanisms have been used, for example the toast is tipped out of the side of the toaster in so-called tilting toasters. With multifunction toasters (so-called combos ) it was possible to realize several functions on the breakfast table in one device at the same time. With a well-known multifunctional toaster , the Armstrong Perc-o-toaster , it was possible, for example, to toast and brew coffee at the same time. Another model allows toasting and boiling eggs at the same time.
In Italy , almost only the hanging toaster has been produced and used since the 1930s. Almost all Italian toasters even today have a basket for each toast toast, in which the toast has to be placed so that it can then be hung in the toaster.
By the early 1950s at the latest, household appliances had become a mass product. Shapes and design were very similar. Technical gimmicks and elaborate decorations were no longer in demand. The pop-up toasters began their triumphant advance during this time.
Today's technology
Modern automatic toasters consist of an electronic or purely thermal-mechanical control mechanism and heating elements, which in inexpensive devices consist of exposed strips of CrNiFe or NiFe alloys drawn on synthetic mica plates. Technical developments relate in particular to safety, the reproducibility of the desired degree of browning as well as extras such as keeping warm, one-sided browning or the burning of patterns, characters or texts. Toasters often have a small grill rack a few centimeters above the top (either fold-out or attachable), where the rising heat can bake rolls. Today's devices always have a so-called crumb tray for convenient and safe removal of the crumbs of the toasted product that accumulate in the toasting process.
Among other things, the following technical partial solutions are in use:
- Control with bimetal
- After pressing down, the contacts for the heating elements are closed, a separate heating conductor heats a bimetal strip until it is deformed to create an intermediate state, after which it cools down again. The toasting process does not end until the bimetal strip has cooled down. This takes the initial temperature of the toaster into account. The degree of browning is set by mechanically specifying the degree of deformation of the bimetal strip.
- electronic control
- The toast and the switch contacts are held down by an electromagnet . The release of the holding magnet and thus the termination of toasting is controlled by an integrated circuit that receives the control signal for the degree of browning from a potentiometer . The control program in the circuit takes into account the pause or the starting temperature of the toaster.
Security functions:
- Protection against improper operation and falling / tipping over: in some toasters a position sensor is integrated, which only enables operation when installed vertically
- Protection against short circuits , electric shock and harmful emissions from the heating conductors containing chromium and nickel: better toasters have insulating material pipes ( silica glass or ceramic ) around the heating conductors . The heating conductors are often made of the more heat-resistant, but also more expensive Kanthal (FeCrAl alloy).
art
- The toaster became the " hero " in a cartoon : The brave little toaster .
- The British Thomas Thwaites tried to build a toaster himself from scratch, which he did not fully succeed. His work is exhibited at the Royal College of Art in London.
Web links
- Technology and design history of the toaster ( Memento from August 26, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) - Annette Hillringhaus, Monika Machnicki: A toast to the toaster , an exhibition on the technology history and design of the toaster and the history of toast in the German Bread Museum Ulm , AsKI- Culture report 2/01.
- The International Central Services Toaster Museum
- Historic toaster in the Toaster Museum
Individual evidence
- ^ Karl Ernst Georges : Comprehensive Latin-German concise dictionary . 8th, improved and increased edition. Hahnsche Buchhandlung, Hannover 1918 ( zeno.org [accessed on June 24, 2019] as usual in Latin, the first person singular indicative present active is given instead of the infinitive).
- ^ Karl Ernst Georges : Comprehensive Latin-German concise dictionary . 8th, improved and increased edition. Hahnsche Buchhandlung, Hannover 1918 ( zeno.org [accessed on June 24, 2019] as usual in Latin, the first person singular indicative present active is given instead of the infinitive).
- ↑ Report from www.sueddeutsche.de ( Memento of the original from July 5, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
