Patent attributes
An oven for maintaining cooked foods at temperatures suitable for serving the foods or even for cooking foods has a cabinet containing multiple heat sinks of channel-shaped configuration. The ends of the heat sinks open out of the cabinet, so that any heat sink may receive a tray of food from either the front or back of the cabinet. The interior surface of the heat sinks generally conform to the cross-sectional shapes of the trays, so that the heat sinks lie along the bottoms and sides of the trays. The heat sinks have a heating elements extended along their sides and bottoms for elevating the temperature of the heat sinks and directing heat into the trays within the heat sinks. In addition, each heat sink also contains a cover which may close the top of the tray in the heat sink and thereby retard the escape of moisture from the tray or may vent the interior of the tray. In other embodiments, the oven includes a cabinet having a plurality of compartments therein, and a plurality of trays in the compartments, each compartment being sized for receiving only one tray per compartment. The compartments are isolated from one another in the cabinet whereby flavor from food in one tray in one compartment is prevented from transferring to food in trays in adjacent compartments.
