Receptacles – Closures – Thermal releaser or actuator
Patent
1983-04-01
1985-07-23
Price, William
Receptacles
Closures
Thermal releaser or actuator
220209, 229 43, 229DIG14, 236 92C, 426118, 426403, B65D 5500
Patent
active
045304408
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
This invention relates to a lid for a food receptacle and more particularly to a lid for a receptacle in which food is to be heated and also to a food receptacle having such a lid.
There is an increasing market for what may be termed fast foods, that is foods which can be quickly reheated to provide a satisfying meal yet can be stored in a freezer or the like for a considerable period.
A wide variety of food may be frozen and stored in this manner but in the past successful reheating of such foods has only taken place when the food in incorporated in a liquid such as a gravy. It has been found that where crisp foods are required a quandry exists. On the one hand, reheating the food in a sealed container causes a steam build up which makes the food glutinous and unpalatable yet on the other hand if the food is heated without any lid at all too much drying out occurs.
An example of such a food is chinese sweet and sour pork. With this food it is preferable that the meat portions be covered with a crisp batter then have a sweet and sour sauce poured over them. If the sauce is poured over the meat before heating then during the heating the crispness of the batter is lost and this spoils the taste and texture of the food. If the food is heated up in an open container without the sauce poured over the meat then too much drying out may occur and the taste and texture is effected.
It is therefore desirable that the food be heated up with the sauce separate from the meat and for this a two compartment reheat receptacle may be used. There is the further problem then however that if the food is heated up with the lid on then the batter on the meat becomes glutinous and if the food is heated up without any lid on then the sauce dries out.
It should be realised that this invention may be applied to many different food dishes and is not restricted to the example given above.
It is the object of the invention therefore to provide a food reheating receptacle and more particularly a lid for a food reheating receptacle which allows foods for which a crisp texture is required to be heated.
There is the further problem however that it is desirable to make such frozen food packaging as easy as possible to reheat and use and to require a manual step such as for instance to place apertures in a lid of such a container between taking the container from the fridge and placing it in an oven means that at times this would not be done and poor results would be obtained and future potential sales lost. It is therefore commercially and gastronomically desirable, and a further object of this invention, that such a lid for a frozen food receptacle be provided with apertures which will stay closed when the food is in a freezer but upon placing in the oven that the apertures will open.
In its broadest form therefore the invention is said to reside in a disposable lid for use with a disposable food receptacle of the type useful for the storage and heating of foods, the lid including a plurality of heat openable apertures.
In a preferred form of the invention the lid may be of a material or otherwise be such that when closing a container containing moisture containing food and being heated with a food to a selected temperature the heat openable apertures will open to an extent to allow release of moisture from within the container.
In one preferred form the material of the lid is such that two layers through the thickness of the lid will expand or contract at different rates upon the application of the heat and therefore cause deflection of the heat openable apertures.
One preferred material for such a lid is cardboard in which differences in the expansion or contraction of an upper and lower surface of the cardboard is due to drying out of one surface and the other surface remaining moisturised.
In a further preferred form the lid may be of a multi-layered material with at least two of the layers having different coefficients of thermal expansion such that deflection of the heat openable apertures will occur.
One such preferred material may
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Modern Packaging, Oct. 1949, p. 106.
Buxdel Pty. Limited
Elkins Gary E.
Price William
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