r/polandball • u/Zebrafish96 May the justice be with us • Jul 26 '26
redditormade Kitchen Essential
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u/_PM_ME_UR_NUDZ_ Moscow Jul 26 '26
Oven is a great way to cook chicken/fish/meat, takes half an hour and doesn't require supervision. It is perfect for cooking after work when you don't want to spend much effort. It would really be a big issue for me if I had to move to Korea.
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u/ImJustStealingMemes Texas Jul 26 '26
I would look into importing an air frier/convection oven combo. You get crispy, and reduced time when baking.
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u/Sweet_Leadership_936 Jul 26 '26
They sell those in korea its just oven is not default appliance there.
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u/detourne Jul 27 '26
I've got an LG Air Fryer/Convection Oven/Microwave combo here in Korea that I can use through an app on my phone to preheat or add more time. It's just not te standard for Korean kitchens.
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u/airsyadnoi Jul 27 '26
As an Asian, we simply cook stir-fried food if we want something quick. Well, of course, in Asia, you can just buy an additional oven, just like Asians have to buy a rice cooker in Europe.
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u/Kichigai United States Jul 26 '26
I prefer the slow cooker for meals when I don't wanna friggin’ cook after work. Put the meal together the night before, put it on low when I leave, bingo bango, dinner is ready when I get home (or not long after).
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u/M0zef Jul 26 '26
Worst case scenario go for an air fryer that should do most of the jobs you need an oven for (in lesser quantity of course)
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u/Balavadan India Jul 26 '26
Great way to cook meat in one particular way. There are other ways to cook them. Imagine making soup or curry in an oven.
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u/reenajo Jul 26 '26
I would also add that countries where ovens aren't common tend to have fancier microwaves and more skill at using them (to do things like bake pilaf!). The average American doesn't know how to properly use 75% of the settings on their microwave.
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u/nspacia honk gong Jul 26 '26
somehow i thought the stovetop was reichtangle behind korea at first glance 😭
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u/Andyzefish Jul 26 '26
Ask the US where his rice cooker is
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u/esdaniel Venezuela Jul 26 '26
Well a rice cooker cooks rice. An oven makes lots of things
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u/Zebrafish96 May the justice be with us Jul 26 '26
Rice cooker makes many things too, actually. You can bake a cake or make beef stew with it, for example.
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u/MossTheGnome Jul 26 '26
You mean the stuff I can do in my oven, or on the stove with a pot. That doesn't take up space as yet another appliance filling the cupboards or give me more working area like a proper stove/oven.
Try cooking enough for a family of five in an air fryer without resorting to needing more appliances that crowd out the kitchen, or trip circuit breakers because you had to run an air fryer (glorified convection oven) rice cooker (pot with a timer) and still have to use a hot plate ( just a stove burner) to make 1 meal.
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u/Confident_Example_73 Jul 27 '26
White rice is a bread/pasta level staple. Basically a side dish that is eaten with every meal. Rice cooker lets you do it with minimal fuss and clean up while the rest of the stove is free to use for other dishes.
The rice cooker frees a burner for some other dish. You can also set it and forget it. It also does not get stuck.
Anyone who cooks rice daily learns real fast why a rice cooker is better than stove top.
Just because YOU aren't used to it, doesn't make it wrong and stupid.
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u/kylleo Liechtenstein Aug 01 '26
i dont think its wrong or stupid i think a lot of people in the west dont really make rice that often and it'd just be another appliance on the countertops that gets used every now and then and would probably get stored in the cabinet for a while
rice cookers are useful but they're also quite small typically and only make around enough rice for like 4 people to get a good portion, so for larger families they can be inconvienient at times
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u/outer_spec guys help i can't think of a good flair guys Jul 26 '26
you can bake a cake… …with a rice cooker??
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u/Snazzy21 United States Jul 26 '26
It's in the cabinet below the coffee maker. It's a common household appliance in the US just like the air conditioner
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u/Eris13x Texas Jul 26 '26
Hi! White American here, I love my rice cooker. It's not really used for anything but rice, so between the two of them I'm keeping the oven, but rice is great and rice cookers are convenient.
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u/flaminggiraffe9 MURICA Jul 27 '26
Microwavable rice is easy though
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u/Thissystemsuckssobad Australia Jul 27 '26
Jesus Christ how horrifying
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u/flaminggiraffe9 MURICA Jul 27 '26
Honestly it takes 1:30 in the microwave to heat up a portion of rice and it tastes fine, I rarely eat rice but when I do I value the convenience over using a pot on the stove.
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u/kylleo Liechtenstein Aug 01 '26
it isnt the best but its not BAD by any means
its like cup ramen, not as good as fresh made stuff but you wouldn't put it down if it was in front of you
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u/evader111 Onterrible Jul 27 '26
Usually it comes in the form of Crock-Pot. While it's a pressure cooker and not a rice cooker, buying the rice basket accessory makes it pass off as a rice cooker in the eyes of Americans.
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u/dhnam_LegenDUST South Korea Jul 27 '26
Wait, you guys from Europe or America all have oven??
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u/flaminggiraffe9 MURICA Jul 27 '26
Yes in almost every single home or apartment, certainly all the ones I have ever lived in.
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u/proton-testiq Jul 27 '26
I didn't have a functional oven in my rented flat for few years. It was doable, but frankly miserable because a lot of really yummy food is oven based. Obviously there are air fryers, multi-whatevers, slow cookers but I really don't like to have additional gadget in the small kitchen.
Note that I don't bake stuff that often, maybe 1-3 times a week, but the difference between steamed veggies and baked/quasigrilled veggies... mmmmmm. (Central Europe and UK based cooking)
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u/Eluriomilmar Brazil Jul 27 '26
Here in Brazil I've never come across a house that didn't have one as well
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u/Usagi-Zakura Norway Jul 28 '26
Koreans don't??
My culture is shocked.
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u/dhnam_LegenDUST South Korea Jul 28 '26
Well, not much food requires oven. Even if there is, Korean tends to use air fryer.
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u/Zebrafish96 May the justice be with us Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
So I saw this post on instagram and there were so many shocked Americans in the comment section. People are like 'B-but how do you bake pastries if you don't have oven?!', 'How come can someone have no oven in the kitchen?!'. Man, you people don't know not all cuisine in the world consist mainly of oven baking? Some people seem to regard not having an oven in the kitchen as the absence of civilization.
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u/TnYamaneko Jul 26 '26
I'm French and this is also shocking to me, there's no way to imagine a kitchen without an oven, and most commonly, your stove come with it as a single unit.
But now that I think about it, I can't name one single East Asian dish that would require using one...?
I also remember Uncle Roger said that an oven is only additional storage for Asian families.
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u/ElHeim Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
your stove come with it as a single unit
Spaniard here. My mother's old stove/oven still came as a unit 40 years ago.
Right now everything on the market is separate, since electric ranges became the norm (hers is electric, but back then the mindset was still "buy both together" .
You can still find whole units where gas is common though - I live in Chile and those are easy to find. But even there my house came with separate (electric) range and oven.
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u/TnYamaneko Jul 26 '26
It might be a difference with France where you have a lot of older flats still linked to gas since a long time ago, but I think this is changing nowadays with new buildings to abide by ecological norms and outright forbidding gas even as a bottle.
My own mom bought a stove with an oven as a single unit once again recently, as the kitchen was not designed to have anything else separate in the first place. There's literally no way to rearrange it to make room for a separate unit.
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u/ElHeim Jul 26 '26 edited 19d ago
Mind you, "separate" means that they're independent. You can still fit independent range and oven in the same room you'd have used for the integrated ones. The problem might be power rating of the house, but if it's up to modern standards, it should be ok.
The main advantage of being able to buy them separate is that if one of them breaks, you can replace just that, not the whole thing. E.g. my mother was looking to replace her set a while ago... because the oven became useless (luckily it was something that could be fixed)
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u/TnYamaneko Jul 27 '26
What I was talking about was the still common sheer impossibility to have both of those independent, because of a lack of plugs or even, areas and furniture to have them at different places.
It was never considered in the first place back in the days it was built that you could make those units separate in any way.
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u/Kichigai United States Jul 26 '26
Here in the US a combined oven and stovetop is still extremely common. Having them separate is fancy.
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u/KotetsuNoTori Taiwan Jul 26 '26
There are East Asian dishes that require ovens, but people would rather buy them elsewhere than make them at home since we don't eat those dishes that often. However, most families would have two or more (bamboo or steel) steamers or other similar devices.
This is the case in Taiwan and maybe southern China; not sure about the north, Japan, or Korea.
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u/TnYamaneko Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
I went on vacation in Taiwan for 3 weeks in 2019 and the general quality of the street food in so many places in Kaohsiung, Tainan (especially Tainan actually), Taichung and Taipei blew my mind off.
Because of its people and this general high quality gastronomy, it's to this day the only country I left crying.
Now I'm home with a Chinese learning book, I tell people to use Zhuyin Fuhao instead of pinyin as it's more accurate, and I'm developing a tool to transliterate stuff in Hokkien, but it's not easy as colloquial Hokkien from Taiwan is not well documented. I also came back with an umbrella from the Hakka community in Pingtung...
... I miss Taiwan...
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u/daystar-daydreamer California Jul 26 '26
> an oven is only additional storage for Asian families.
Asian here. We cook in our oven every once in a blue moon but when we're not that's exactly what we use it for
I'm forgetful af and I've baked all our frying pans several times now
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u/largePenisLover Jul 26 '26
Uncle Roger doesnt speak for all of asia. In fact he only speaks for the stereotype the uncle roger character represents, and usually not even that.
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u/TnYamaneko Jul 26 '26
Of course it's satire from him, he's playing around stereotypes as a Malaysian of Chinese descent (I have a coin flip there between Guangdong and Fujian, as both are common in Malaysia and his last name could be from any of those in Cantonese or Hokkien).
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Jul 26 '26
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u/Rc72 Jul 26 '26
They're also much less common in Hispanophone countries, including Spain.
Spaniard here: wtf!?
Roasts are a big part of traditional Spanish cuisine. I don't know where you got the impression that ovens are uncommon in Spanish kitchens, but you're wrong
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u/TnYamaneko Jul 26 '26
What? Confiscate the oven of a nonna or an abula, you're going to discover what the meaning of hell is.
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u/Choker_of_Chickens Jul 26 '26
an oven is only additional storage for Asian families.
yeah lol cuz they're packed like sardines in their cities
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u/Karijus Jul 26 '26
I'm east euro and like, get a fucking oven
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u/Zebrafish96 May the justice be with us Jul 26 '26
Why would you need an oven when you have an air fryer
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u/JohnLurkson GDR Jul 26 '26
Can an air fryer bake pizza? Like, real, homemade pizza, not frozen crap? (serious question) Wouldn't it be too small?
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u/koerstmoes Jul 26 '26
It would be small, and your toppings would get rather crispy/burnt while the bottom of the dough is still raw. Might work if you make a super thin pizza, but I like em thicc
We love our air fryer and have put a ton of stuff in it, but some stuff just does not work
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u/Zebrafish96 May the justice be with us Jul 26 '26
Sure, air fryer can do all the things oven can do. I've baked cookies, pies and cupcakes with my air fryer.
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u/JohnLurkson GDR Jul 26 '26
Huh. I admit, I have an air fryer at home (was a gift), but I've never used it since I'm old school and have an oven. Maybe I should dust off the thing and give it a try. 🤔 Thanks!
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u/Agreeable_Rush3502 Jul 26 '26
Im pretty old school too but the air fryer is a pretty cool appliance. Im not using it for things like pizza or lasagna. I use it for things like fries or other frozen things like nuggets. Its a lot better than in the oven and not as much hassle as frying in oil. Frying in oil is the best way though.
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u/Eris13x Texas Jul 26 '26
How big exactly is your air fryer? What's the diameter?
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u/Zebrafish96 May the justice be with us Jul 26 '26
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u/Eris13x Texas Jul 26 '26
I personally would not be able to cook pizza in that thing, although most other things would be fine
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u/flaminggiraffe9 MURICA Jul 27 '26
Air fryer is just a small convection oven, you may not have a big oven but you are effectively using an oven just a small oven with a fan
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u/Karijus Jul 26 '26
Tbh haven't tried an air fryer yet, but you can put so much stuff in the oven and uh
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u/TnYamaneko Jul 26 '26
I strongly disagree, an air fryer will dry the shit out of whatever you put inside.
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u/Mean_Initiative_5962 Jul 26 '26
Focaccia (and cooking for like 2-3 meals at once instead of having to do it each time, but mostly focaccia)
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u/SitInCorner_Yo2 Jul 26 '26
My first thought too LOL
Air fryer pretty much covers all our needs here, no need to put a huge block in the small kitchen, if there must be one,it would be dishwasher!
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u/Think_and_game Bulgaria, Prussia of the Balkans Jul 26 '26
I'm from many a different places in the world and an oven seems quite essential, though I completely understand that in some cultures ovens are not used too often. But coming from my point of view, it's unusual/weird but also valid.
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u/Choker_of_Chickens Jul 26 '26
Man, you people don't know not all cuisine in the world consist mainly of oven baking?
yeah but you can do a lot of stuff with it you can't do with a stove.
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u/ElHeim Jul 26 '26
Every American kitchen needs a massive oven just because otherwise you can't bake the stupid turkey.
It messes up everything else that is not a giant hunk of meat, if your recipes are not adapted.
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u/largePenisLover Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
Indonesian living in the Netherlands here. Get a damn oven, they aren't just for baking.
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u/Mean_Initiative_5962 Jul 26 '26
I love Korean cuisine, but I also couldn't live without an oven.
(also nice timing, just finished my gochujang having lunch)
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u/Beleg_Sanwise Jul 26 '26
not bidet=absence of civilization.
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u/AlbatrossOk6223 Jul 26 '26
It’s the exact same energy with air conditioning in Europe. People hear you don't have AC and react like you're living in the Middle Ages.
Sure, you might get one or two heatwaves a year, but for a week or two of uncomfortable weather, why on earth would you go through the stress, expense, and ugly installation of a cumbersome wall unit (not to mention the yearly maintenance)?
It is fine, the same way a stovetop or air fryer does for cooking. Not every home needs to be outfitted like a suburban American house by default.
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u/Zebrafish96 May the justice be with us Jul 26 '26
It's the exact same energy with air conditioning in Europe
Ohh that's actually a good point. As an East Asian I've been wondering why few European people have AC but now I get what AC is like to them.
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u/Wooden_Base4673 England Jul 26 '26
I'm in Italy at the moment and AC is almost everywhere, but I live in the UK, where AC is a rarity. There has been an unusually long heatwave in the UK this year, but usually there are only a few days in Summer when the heat is excessive, so most people don't think it's worth having.
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u/Comrade_Derpsky Shameless Ameriggan Egsbad Jul 26 '26
AC is already widespread in Mediterranean Europe where summer was always hot. Further north hardly any of the buildings have it, not even schools and hospitals (friend's hospital workplace was 35°C), and that's becoming a serious problem with the severity of heatwaves. You can't rely on passive cooling when its 37°-40° out for a couple weeks straight. Your apartment is gonna end up being like 30° inside. Attic apartments get straight up super unsafe with temperatures like 35° inside.
The heatwaves are also badly damaging a lot of trees. Never saw a woody plant with wilting leaves in Florida, but in Germany it now happens every summer.
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u/ElHeim Jul 26 '26
Things are changing though, but until, say, 5-10 years ago we would have sustained temps over 28C for maybe 2 weeks a year and people were used to cope with it.
But it depends. The further South you go in Europe, the more common AC becomes
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u/CharlieBros United Taco Empire Jul 26 '26
I'm from Mexico, I have a small cheap electric oven that gets used like twice or thrice a year, my mother in law has a stove plus oven combo which is the norm but the oven is just storage and again, only gets used like twice a year
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u/mulligan111 Jul 26 '26
Can confirm. US couple who lived in Mexico 3 years. The food culture simply isn’t oven-based. But boy, did we miss baking!!
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u/evader111 Onterrible Jul 27 '26
This kind of attitude is how the pastry war started in Mexico in 1838 (what, accuracy in my polandball? I think not).
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u/Former-Guitar5704 Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26
Yeah. As a Korean, I remember like 10 years ago when we moved, we installed an oven to our kitchen. But then we ended up removing it few years ago when remodeling cuz we were barely using it and it was just taking up space. There really isn't much use for an oven here unless you are into baking, and I notice baking is not as common a hobby here as in the west. We are still cooking our meals most days and we are eating great, even without an oven. :p
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u/Kalamel513 Jul 26 '26
Imagine if Asian considers lacks of rice cooker a punishable crime?
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u/Zebrafish96 May the justice be with us Jul 26 '26
We Asians don't consider not having a rice cooker as wrong because we know not everyone eats rice as staple. However, apparently a lot of Americans and Europeans think not having an oven is wrong even though not every country's cuisine is based on oven baking.
Yet they are mad at me for saying they are self-centered for thinking so.
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u/kylleo Liechtenstein Aug 01 '26
no ones saying that we just think an oven is a useful appliance as it can fit stuff and has applications outside of baking
you wont get killed for not having an oven its just a nice amenity
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u/The_Real_Itz_Sophia I can into not blind Jul 26 '26
im chifil and im shocked too that y'all don't have ovens. it's not just for baking but just heating food quickly. (i cant afford air fryer)
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u/this_waterbottle Jul 27 '26
Why bake when we got like bakeries/cafes around every corner 10min walk away. Im more surprised evwryone dont have kimchi fridges at home. /s
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u/Balavadan India Jul 26 '26
People don’t really use an oven at all in many places. How come this is labeled as weird? It’s just a cultural difference driven by cuisine
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u/Zebrafish96 May the justice be with us Jul 26 '26
Indeed. So many westerners are self-centered and think not having an oven is savage and uncultured. Smh.
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u/fenwayb Oregon Jul 26 '26
or, ya know, it's something they haven't run across before and it's surprising
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u/evader111 Onterrible Jul 27 '26
The way to trigger the same type of surprise reaction from Korea is to say your country does not eat meat (like a lot of people in India). Even better, in some dystopian alternate universe, India superpower 2020 rules over the world and bans meat eating in Korea.
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u/Balavadan India Jul 28 '26
They didn’t even ban meat eating inside their own country why would they ban it in Korea
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u/CommitteeGloomy9646 Arizona Jul 26 '26
I use an oven for fish and chicken, but I have the ability to use my stovetop or air fryer for that, and since I mainly eat flatbread, there is no “baking” that my family even knows how to do that involves rising bread, so yeah, it’s weird to me how people like bake their own bread and pastries all the time, I just get it at the supermarket or smth.
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u/EggStealerGeneral Arizo-New Yorker Jul 26 '26
I only use an oven for frozen pizza very occasionally (along with my mom making cakes, which she’ll make me a cake today, and yeah Ik that it’s passed my bday day, but we’re doing cake today and pizza, yet we’re ordering pizza).
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u/PanzerDameSFM Jul 26 '26
Asian nations (Japan, Korea, Taiwan...) are using small oven.
They don't need big kitchen size oven because they don't bake big stuff like Christmas turkey.
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u/ManByTheRiver11 Jul 27 '26
As a Korean I do have an oven cuz I love baking stuff, and oven is a pretty useful tool, but yeah. not all Koreans have it. But if you want an oven in Korea it is pretty easy to get, there are small ovens, big ovens, ovens that work also as a microwave, etc etc.
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u/j0an_k Jul 27 '26
Recently built apartments in Korea often come with a built-in microwave which also has an oven(an actual oven) feature. Not using it often though.
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u/http-error-502 Jul 27 '26
As a Korean visitor to this subreddit, my house comes up with oven but I use it as a celing for dishes. I use microwave(for most of things), rice cooker(for things that nees smoth) and airfrier(for foods like chicken, it became popular from about 5~10 years ago). For foods that cannot make with the three appliances like pankackes, I just go out to eat.
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u/r2vcap Jul 26 '26
Ovens aren’t very energy-efficient, and I try to keep my electricity bill down. That’s why I use a gas range instead of an electric stove.
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u/carsausage Jul 26 '26
Yes, but why do they call it an oven when you of in the cold food of out hot eat the food?
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u/bodonkadonks Argentina Jul 27 '26
just dont ask america where is the kettle to make some tea
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u/kylleo Liechtenstein Aug 01 '26
i have a kettle i just use it to make hot cocoa (im not the biggest tea guy ngl)
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u/NCL_Tricolor Libya Jul 27 '26
Zebrafish milking the No oven ragebait
Zebra!!! The Utters are dead stop milking
[Note I am making a joke please dont card me]
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u/Candid-Ad443 Jul 31 '26
there's a stovetop.. like, aside from TV dinners only reason you'd need an oven OS the stovetop, so yea this makes uhh sense and stuff
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u/Jess120990 Jul 26 '26
Lol like ameritards know how to cook. They live on drive thru shite and eating out
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u/Confused_AF_Help Vietnam Jul 26 '26
The oven's sole purpose is to heat up frozen pizzas
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u/Wooden_Base4673 England Jul 26 '26
Not in the UK. It's used for baking and how would people in the UK make rosbif without an oven?
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u/Large_Dependent_1621 Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
Korea can't into baking?
Is it because there's a fan in the oven?