Young Brunette Girl Shows Off At The Kitchen Stove

Stoves continued to evolve and charcoal began to replace wood as the burning material in stoves. Up until the 1970s, the top French restaurant Le Pyramid continued to use charcoal stoves. These stoves had flat tops and the heat was concentrated on one side of the stove top so that cooks could cook things at different temperatures based on where the pot or pan was located. This was called the "piano" system. After coal was replaced with gas, French chefs continued to prefer the smooth cooking surface and so the majority of French gas ovens had flat metal surfaces over the gas burners, which continues to be known as the "French style" today.
Gas stoves
The first gas stoves were developed already in the 1820s, but these remained isolated experiments. At the Great Exhibition in London in 1851, a gas stove was shown, but only in the 1880s did this technology start to become a commercial success. The main factor in this delay was the slow growth of the gas pipe network.