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RFID Cookware
HaggiZ writes "Vitacraft are claiming to have what they call RFIQin Robotic Cookware (unfortunate name). It's basically pots and pans that you can place RFID cooking cards in the handle with. The communicate with the induction stove 16 times a second to adjust the cooking when required. Neat idea, although I'm not sure anything I cook needs to have it's temperature reviewed or adjusted every 0.06 of a second." For all the evil uses of RFID that have been floated over the years, it's nice to see that someone is going to finally make it so I stop burning my lunch.
This has nothing to do with RFID really. RFID is just an ID. This is a nice temperature monitoring device. I have see other wireless units for sale but none built into the Pot like this.
Its a clever idea that I can see being used for testing out cooking techniques. However, using the term RFID is just to hype the produce as it really is not getting that much out of the RFID technology.
I can see this being something of a safety feature too, if you have the "greasy food" item in your pan, it won't let the temperature exceed the flashpoint of the oil you're using (minus some for contaimination) and you'll never have an oil fire again.
I have to admit though, this seems like gadetry overkill for even me, and I'm a hardcore geek.
I read the internet for the articles.
Even temperatures would benefit gourmet cooks more than inattentive college students trying not to burn their mac and cheese. Precise cooking temperatures without large swings command premium dollars.
Just check out this for the extremes people will go to for this kind of control.
Actually, cast iron has wonderfully even heating, better than almost anything else out there. However, because of it's poor conductivity, you have to let it sit on the stove for a bit for the temperature to even out.
One of the best restaurants in the world, The French Laundry, uses induction stoves instead of gas stoves.
RFID cards that tell the stove to turn off after a certain amount of time would help prevent mistakes with Teflon pans.
Better would be pans with sensors that monitor the temperature of the pans used. Not only would it be safer, but it would be easier to control temperatures of food being cooked.
This sig seemed like a good idea at the time....
It's still up to you to remember to stop playing doom 3 and go rescue your omlette from becoming a black crunchy lump.
No, it'll tell when it's done and turn off the heat, right?
I make websites and stuff. Buy one.
I need an RFID-active oven or a pan on which a pizza can fit. And a pizza chip which knows how to tell the stovetop or the oven how to cook it.
To take the thought further, the only place I could see this being really useful is in pre-packaged heat and serve style food. Just embed another chip in the packaging which contains the instructions for heating. Waving the chip by the stove's RFID scanner will program the cooking cycle, with the pots measuring temperature to make sure everything's going right. Stirring would be sort of a problem, unless you incorporated some sort of inductive stirring similar to some chemlab hotplates. Just coat the magnet in some high quality porcelain or something so it washes off easilly.
There are a couple other uses with fresh ingredients, such as whisking eggs over a flame for a mother sauce and making sure it doesn't get warm enough to scramble, melting chocolate, making custards, controling temperature for a beurre blanc, making custards, etc. But for actually cooking most main courses I'd imagine the good old giant gas burner and a trained set of eyes and ears would go a lot farther (such as gauging temperature by the sizzle when cooking steak, and using the good old fashined poke test to gauge doneness: not using a fork, but simply pressing down with your tongs or even finger and feeling the resistance.)
I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
I visited the website, and I think this is marketing. The most important measurement of temperature in cooking food is the internal temperature of high-mass items such as steaks. The temperature reading which is important is the innermost part of the thickest steak in the pan. How is an RFID tag in the pan going to measure that? Answer: it isn't. Only a thermocouple probe can cut that job, which is why I have two different thermocouples in my kitchen that I use almost every time I cook.
Another part of the website reads: "Prohibits use of wrong pans with incompatible recipes." Excuse you, Vita Craft Corporation, but I don't need you to tell me how to use my own pans. Sometimes I cook on the outside of my cast iron skillets.
I think this has nothing to do with improving the way that humans prepare food and everything to do with using a new technology to sell more cookware. If you want to become a better cook, then, by god, invest the money in some good cookware, take some cooking classes with people you like, watch some good tv shows, and, by all means, don't be afraid to try things and have fun doing it. If anything, it's an excuse to become more social. If you invite 6 people over, then you're going to be inspired to try and make something that impresses and feeds your loved ones.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.