In most kitchens around the world, one appliance that is invariably found in one form or the other is a stove or a range that is used for cooking of food. This appliance is actually a unit that makes use of fuel in the form of gas that is supplied through pipeline or available from a cylinder and there are burners that produce the flame over which utensils are kept to prepare food. However, if you go to the market to buy such an appliance for your kitchen, you are sure to be overwhelmed with choices and the nomenclature that makes use of words like oven, stove, range, and so on. This article attempts to remove doubts from the minds of the readers regarding terms like oven, stove, and range.
Stove
There are people who use the terms stove, oven, and range interchangeably. This is not correct. It is prudent to use the term stove for the top most part of the appliance where the burners are. These burners produce the flame over which utensils are kept for cooking of foods. Thus, whether you are boiling, frying, or making use of a pressure cooker over the flame, you are effectively making us of the stove top. Stove is powered by gas though, in recent times, there are also available induction stovetops that are powered by the heat of copper coils placed just below the burners.
Oven
Oven is an enclosed structure inside the range that is used to cook foods by generating heat. Baking and roasting are two of the popular cooking methods when you make use of the oven of the range to cook foods. There are coils at the top and bottom that heat up and supply the heat to the food item that is kept inside the oven. Oven is powered by electricity.
Range
In the market, there are stoves and ovens that are being sold separately. You can buy stovetops and ovens and also a unit that houses both the stove and the oven. It is this appliance that is called a range. There are people who say that the differences between the stove and range pertain to the size and the number of burners with range having more burners and having a larger size than a stove. A range can be powered by electricity or gas.
Range vs Stove vs Oven
• Stove is a term that came into use with the replacement of the old system of cooking directly over the flame by burning coal or wood. Stove actually refers to the stove top that contains burners that provide flame by the burning gas.
• Oven refers to the unit inside a range that cooks food by baking and roasting. It is an enclosed unit that generates heat using electricity.
• Range is a word that is used for a kitchen appliance that contains both the stove and the oven inside it.
• There are some who feel that range has more number of burners, and also larger in size than stoves.