The microwave oven, a culinary innovation not even as old as some extant Christmas fruitcakes, has one thing in common with the spit, a cooking utensil dating back to the invention of the stick: both microwave ovens and spits rotate the food being cooked so that the heat is distributed evenly. With a spit, these rotations are especially crucial, for failing to turn a spit over an open fire results in the roast being charred on one side and raw on the other. Over the course of a few hours a spit might turn thousands of times, but nonetheless good cooks used to brag that they had turned the roast exactly the right number of times—neither one too many, nor one too few. Such a roast was done to a turn. The French counterpart for this term is a point, meaning to the point, or—more idiomatically—done to the point between medium-rare and well-done. The English word appointment has the same origin as the French culinary term: an appointment occurs at a point between an earlier time and a later time.