To date, various proposals have been made in the field of steam cooking apparatuses that perform cooking by use of steam. Examples of such steam cooking apparatuses are seen in Patent Documents 1 to 5 listed below. Patent Document 1 discloses a steam cooking apparatus wherein steam is jetted into food trays. Patent Document 2 discloses a cooking apparatus wherein superheated steam is blown into an oven chamber, or steam inside the oven chamber is turned into superheated steam by being radiation-heated. Patent Document 3 discloses a cooking apparatus wherein superheated steam is supplied to inside an entire heating chamber, or to around food, or to both. Patent Document 4 discloses an superheated steam cooking apparatus wherein superheated steam generated with a boiler is heated with reheating means provided on the blowing side of blowing means and is then blown into a chamber. Patent Document 5 discloses a heating apparatus wherein the inside of a heating box is preheated with the air that has been heated with a heater, and then cooking is performed by use of superheated steam.
Patent Document 1: JP-U1-H3-67902 (pp. 4-6 of the whole-text specification, and FIGS. 1-3)
Patent Document 2: JP-A-H11-141881 (pp. 3-5, and FIGS. 1-3)
Patent Document 3: JP-A-H8-49854 (pp. 2-3, and FIGS. 1-7)
Patent Document 4: JP-A-2001-263667 (pp. 2-4, and FIGS. 1-6)
Patent Document 5: JP-A-2002-272604 (p. 13, and FIG. 19)