The Gadgets Page

I’ve been thinking about the George Foreman Grill a lot lately. Why did it become so popular? It seemed like everyone I knew became an advocate for the thing a few years ago. It was like they suddenly discovered that they could cook food. Couldn’t we always grill food on our stove before? Yes we could. So why did we forget it? One word:

Microwave

Back in the seventies and eighties, we became obsessed with the microwave. It was SO easy and quick to heat up food. We tried to cook EVERYTHING in the microwave. We even were willing to bake cakes in the microwave, as shown in this commercial from Pillsbury:

As silly as it sounds, those microwave cakes tasted alright. I remember another commercial when I was a child in which a woman was demonstrating a microwave and a curmudgeon in the back of the audience kept asking, “But does it brown?” None of our microwaves browned food (except the miracle microwave in that commercial), but browning is something we gladly gave up for the convenience of speed.

After ten or fifteen years of eating soggy microwaved food, grilled food sounded pretty good. Food that was grilled on both sides at the same time was innovative and made the grilling time quicker. That, coupled with the infomercial world that we found ourselves in was a phenomenon.

Do I like my George Foreman Grill? Yes, I own the red one pictured here.

I’ve never used the other three plates that have come with it, but I keep thinking that I’ll make some waffles with it someday. Huge waffles for an army of angry football players who are REALLY hungry. Until then, I’ll just keep grilling my pork chops, hamburgers and steaks. It’s an awkward and bulky appliance sitting on my precious counter space when I could just as easily grill on my stove with a pan, but I still love the thing.

What can I say? I’m a child of the microwave generation.