Food - Drink
The Oven Accident That Lead To The Invention Of CorningWare
By JEN PENG
While some accidental inventions changed what we ate and how we ate them, others had an effect on how we prepared and cooked our food. In 1952, Dr. S. Donald Stookey was heating a piece of photosensitive glass in the Corning lab, but instead of heating it to 600 C, he accidentally heated it to 900 C, and discovered something interesting.
When Dr. Stookey opened the oven, he expected a big mess, but instead discovered that the glass was "still in perfect shape, milky white from the crystallization" and "doesn't break when dropped," as noted by the Corning website. A new glass-ceramic material had been discovered, which Corning named CorningWare.
Corning already offered Pyrex as part of its line of kitchenware, which it released in 1915. However, as Chemical & Engineering News explained, CorningWare was "even more durable than Pyrex" and "gave home cooks the ability to bake, serve, and refrigerate foods in the same dish."