Patent Application
20050218139
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to selecting cooking parameters in the preparation of foods, and more specifically, selecting cooking parameters using an intelligent user interface to select the cooking parameters of new cooking technologies in the preparation of foods.
2. Background of the Related Technology
Over the years there have been many attempts to introduce new cooking technologies that would allow faster cooking of foods. These new cooking technology products, e.g., convection, microwave, quartz light and infrared ovens, have been devised in order to try and speed up the cooking process. However the new cooking technologies caused consumers to guess how to properly cook foods, e.g., time, power used, etc. Guidelines were presented as to how to best cook using a new technology, but required much trial and error before satisfactory cooking results were obtained. Quite often the user was frustrated and took a long time to arrive at reasonable results.
With subsequent technology enhancements in the new cooking technology products, e.g., microwave ovens, these products began to include some pre-programmed functions, e.g., buttons for cooking popcorn, baked potatoes, and frozen foods. Unfortunately, these pre-programmed functions still fell short in meeting the user's expectations. With differing amounts of food to be cooked, these pre-programmed functions proved inadequate for all situations. Yet other new technologies provided a complex interface where the user was required to reply to multiple questions in order to approximate a cooking cycle. The resulting cooking cycle would be adjusted for the amount of food to be cooked. This was particularly important since the new cooking technologies were not able to cook varying amounts of food in the same time frame.
Therefore, a problem exists, and a solution is needed for better and more consistent results when cooking foods with new cooking technologies.
The invention remedies the shortcomings of using new cooking technologies by providing an intelligent user interface for the selection of predefined new technology cooking profiles for a number of different foods. When a food has not been predefined for the new cooking technology, procedures used for conventional cooking technologies may converted to the desired new cooking technologies so as to obtain substantially the same cooking results for the desired food.
According to an embodiment of the invention, selection from a menus of a plurality of different foods may be used for programming a new technology cooking profile for the selected food to be cooked. Profile parameters for the new technology cooking may be empirically determined and/or extrapolated from profile parameters determined from cooking of similar foods. Predefined “hot buttons” may be used for quick selection of a cooking profile for a desired food (e.g., common foods such as popcorn, pizza rolls, chicken wings, oven fries, and other prepared and frozen foods), and/or a menu screen may be scrolled through to select a cooking profile for the desired food.
According to another embodiment of the invention, a user may simply define a cooking profile using a familiar method, e.g., from a standard cookbook and/or prior experience, e.g., old family recipe, and then this familiar cooking profile may be converted to an equivalent cooking profile appropriate for the new cooking technology being used. The present invention may correlate standard instructions for cooking foods, e.g., in a conventional oven, to the necessary control and timing profiles for cooking the same food using a new technology, e.g., an infrared oven. When the user desires to cook a food whose cooking profile has not been correlated to the new technology, the user may optionally select a custom menu option, e.g., convert-menu. The convert-menu may query the user for information that may be used for converting a conventional cooking profile for a food to an equivalent operating profile for cooking the food with the new technology. The user may be asked to enter the type of food, e.g., meat, fish, poultry, vegetables, pastry, pies, etc., and the conventional cooking temperature and time for that food. The type of food, and the conventional cooking temperature and time may then be used for converting to an equivalent operating profile for cooking the food with the new technology. Weight and/or thickness of the food also may used in the profile conversion process. Thus, the conversion process may use the conventional cooking parameters and type of food, optionally including weight and/or thickness to create an appropriate new cooking technology profile for that food.
A technical advantage of the invention is more predictable cooking of foods by a new cooking technology. Another technical advantage is ease of use by people of different cooking abilities. Yet another advantage is quick selection of commonly cooked foods. Still another technical advantage is conversion of known cooking profiles of conventional ovens to the new technology cooking to produce substantially the same food cooking result. Other technical advantages should be apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art in view of what has been disclosed herein.
A more complete understanding of the present disclosure and advantages thereof may be acquired by referring to the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings wherein:
The invention may be susceptible to various modifications and alternative forms. Specific exemplary embodiments thereof are shown by way of example in the drawing and are described herein in detail. It should be understood, however, that the description set forth herein of specific embodiments is not intended to limit the present invention to the particular forms disclosed. Rather, all modifications, alternatives, and equivalents falling within the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims are intended to be covered.
Referring now to the drawings, the details of exemplary embodiments of the present invention are schematically illustrated. Like elements in the drawings will be represented by like numbers, and similar elements will be represented by like numbers with a different lower case letter suffix.
Referring now to
The top IR heater 102 is positioned so as to emit infrared radiant heat directly onto the surface of the food located in the oven chamber 112. The top radiant heat reflector 108 is preferably designed to evenly distribute reflected infrared radiant heat energy over the food 114 from the top IR heater 102. The top IR heater 102 may comprise one or more infrared radiant heat sources.
The bottom IR heaters 104 and 106 are located below the food tray 116. The bottom radiant heat reflector 110 directs the infrared radiant heat energy into the food 114 from the bottom IR heaters 104 and 106. The bottom IR heaters 104 and 106 preferably emit lower infrared wavelengths for deeper penetration of food during cooking. The lower infrared wavelengths may pass through the food tray 116 and/or be reflected from the bottom radiant heat reflector 110, and/or walls of the oven enclosure 120. The food tray 116 may be a wire screen, heat resistant glass or ceramic, a metal pan, a grilling plate having vertical ridges thereon (not shown), etc.
The reflectors 108 and 110 are shaped so as to reflect the infrared radiant heat from the top IR heater 102 and the bottom IR heaters 104 and 106, respectively, onto the food in the oven chamber 112. The infrared radiant heat reflected from the reflectors 108 and 110 may be at a longer wavelength than the directly emitted infrared radiant heat from the top IR heater 102 and the bottom IR heaters 104 and 106, respectively. This longer wavelength infrared radiant heat penetrates deeper into the food, thus shortening the moisture evaporation time of the food before surface browning may occur.
Referring now to
A power on-off button 310 may be used to turn the cooking appliance on and off. A start-stop button 308 may be used to start or stop cooking of the food. A menu button 318 may be used to select from a plurality of different foods that may have cooking profiles already defined when using the new technology cooking appliance. The menu button 318 may be pressed and a list of foods, indicated on the display 304, and may be scrolled through with the (+) button 312 and the (−) button 314. In addition, the menu button 318 may be used to select a convert menu for determining a cooking profile of a food not on the menu list. The convert menu can may be used to input cooking parameters of standard old technology cooking and convert these parameters into appropriate new cooking technology parameters so the new cooking technology appliance may cook the desired food to the same expected end result.
Referring to
In
The invention, therefore, is well adapted to carry out the objects and to attain the ends and advantages mentioned, as well as others inherent therein. While the invention has been depicted, described, and is defined by reference to exemplary embodiments of the invention, such references do not imply a limitation on the invention, and no such limitation is to be inferred. The invention is capable of considerable modification, alteration, and equivalents in form and function, as will occur to those ordinarily skilled in the pertinent arts and having the benefit of this disclosure. The depicted and described embodiments of the invention are exemplary only, and are not exhaustive of the scope of the invention. Consequently, the invention is intended to be limited only by the spirit and scope of the appended claims, giving full cognizance to equivalents in all respects.
This patent application is related to commonly owned patent application U.S. Ser. No. 10/776,028, filed Feb. 10, 2004, entitled “Multi-Purpose Oven Using Infrared Heating For Reduced Cooking Time” by Luis Cavada and Alvaro Vallejo, and is hereby incorporated by reference herein for all purposes.
