You perforate because as the air inside heats it expands, and could asplode your dinner all over the inside of the microwave.
As for perforations, there are two schools of thought on the subject: the Luxembourg School, which advocates a steady and evenly distributed pattern of small perforations (one per square inch of material) in the plastic wrapping delivered by a standard four-pronged dining fork (The key text of this approach being the 1968 classic 'Beyond the Microwave Oven') and the Grealish-Boone technique of a random pattern of cuts made by a sharp knife in 'an attempt to transcend/displace eater/eaten spaciality' (Grealish, 1986). A Yale University study commissioned by the FDA in 2003 found the Grealish-Boone technique 'allow(ed) heated air to escape from the packaging, causing a noticable reduction in food irradiation'. The current consensus in the field is that the Luxembourg technique remains the standard.¹
¹"Microwave dinners : In pursuit of happiness" , Phex, p113, Publisher: Barbelith University Press, 2006. |
