Who built the first solar cooker? And when?

The first solar cooker was invented long ago

Well, as incredible as it may seem, the first sun powered cooker was built in 1767 by Horace de Saussure, one of Europe’s foremost naturalists of the period.

Other scientists of the same period struggled to work with mirrors in order to focus the temperature of the sun, but Horace de Saussure wanted to know what results he can get with a glass box, what temperature can he get inside on of these boxes. So he built 5 boxes that fit one inside the other, closed by a glass top and exposed the box to the sun.

After a period of several hours, Horace de Saussure observed that the temperature found inside the box was 189 F and that the fruits he put inside were cooked and juicy. Well, this was actually the first solar cooker ever!

He couldn’t explain very well what happened there, but we can at this moment. Glass has a great ability of letting the sun beams pass, heating the air inside, but not allowing the heated air to leave the box, keeping it inside.

He kept experimenting, building another box where he obtained a temperature of 230 F! He started a theory why it is colder in the mountains than in the lower areas, so he carried his glass box in the mountains where he exposed it to the sun for a period and then carried it to the lower areas where the temperature was higher.

The fun fact is that even if the temperature was 34 F higher in the lower areas, the temperature inside the box was almost identical! This confirmed Horace de Saussure theory that the sun shines with equal power in the fields and in the mountains, but the atmosphere is guilty for the different temperatures outside in the two environments.

Anyway, we can say that Horace de Saussure was the father of the solar cooker of today, his experiments helped a lot to understand how we could use the power of the sun to cook healthy meals!

1. Solar cooker recipes: Pot Roast | Solar cooker,solar oven Says:
   October 2nd, 2009 at 12:39 am

   [...] speaking, cooking with the sun is not such an old occupation (but not that new also, remember the first solar oven article of a few days [...]