The cookbook “Microwave Cooking from Litton” gives a window into the era of 1980s convenience cooking, showing the heyday of microwave innovation and ambition. It features 93 pages of easy to cook recipes that often involve no more than five steps to make. In these recipes, everything from full family meals, to desserts, to snacks is covered, featuring many recipes that normally would not be thought of as traditional microwave fare. An example of this is the Coq Au Vin recipe that will be analysed in the “recipe cards” section of this webpage. The portion of the cookbook not filled with recipes includes a roughly 25 page overview of basic microwave cooking methods and instructions, five pages for the index, 2-3 pages for the introduction and table of contents and approximately 2-3 pages of advertisement for Litton products. The presence of a rather large section dedicated to helping people operate a microwave is an indicator of the time period this cookbook was published in, as microwaves were still considered a rather new kitchen appliance in 1981.

As for the advertisements, it is clear that Litton was not just looking to profit from book sales with this cookbook, and looked to it as an opportunity to increase sales for their burgeoning suite of microwave products. Appearance-wise, the cookbook aims to stick out amongst other books, with a bright cover featuring a tempting roast dinner. This use of colour is combined with smart and sleek graphic design throughout the cookbook that draws a reader’s attention, and often features large text for ease of reading. As for this copy of the book in particular, it appears to have been either lightly used by Norene Gilletz, or taken care of exceptionally well, as there is little to no damage to the book and all pages are present. Overall, this is a fantastic cookbook that reveals a time where microwave cooking was not ubiquitous.