9/10/05 The Presure Cooker

[Minis On The Edge]

Where did the Presure Cooker Originate? What year was it used for the first time?

[shutterbugkc]

The first version of a pressure cooker was created in 1680 by Denis Papin. He made a large cast iron vessel with a lid that locked. His version raised cooking temperatures by 15% over boiling, and accordingly reduced cooking time. However, regulating the steam and temperature was difficult, and explosions were common. ;)

It debuted in the US in the New York Worlds Fair in 1939. Then, it was made by the National Presto Industries.

My grandmother would be so proud! She used to can a LOT.

[havanaholly]

My grandparents had friends who lived in Kitchener, ON, and he was a retired engineer (from before engineering was specialized). Early in our marriage DH & I went to visit the couple on our first trip to Canada (our second was last year) and it was a delightful trip except for one tiny detail; he did most of the cooking, and he did it in their pressure cooker. The pressure gauge is usually set for 155 psi, but he had made a variable pressure gauge of removable graduated steel rings and he cooked fairly edible oatmeal for breakfast at 5 psi in the same amount of time it takes me to cook the "quick-cooking" kind, which he did every morning we were there.

This lovely, methodical scientific gentleman oved to eat precisely the same foods at precisely the same times every day, so often his wife would go with us on the pretext of showing us the sights, just so we could take her somewhere different to eat lunch.

The main point of this is what he did for dinner. This man would take porterhouse steak, cut it into precise 1" cubes (as well as potatoes, carrots & onions) and cook it in the pressure cooker at 15 psi until the result tasted not too very different from the breakfast oatmeal.

As soon as we got home DH took the pressure cooker we got for a wedding gift and donated it to a local charity ;)

And we still don't own a pressure cooker!