Multi-cookers were, 2009-2018, electric pressure cookers with: a heating element in a round plate below the cooking vessel, stainless or non-stick metal pots, sensors, a control panel and a programmed control responding to feedback from the sensors. The conglomerate Midea of Guangdong Province, China patented a multi-cooker in 2006. The Instant Pot pressure multi-cooker took …
A pressure cooker reaches cooking temperatures above the boiling point of water (212 F. or 100 C.). Pressure cooking involves time to bring water to a boil, reach cooking temperature, and a period at the operating pressure and temperature. Pressure cookers use high heat to build pressure and get food to a cooking temperature; low …
I used a slow cooker for many years. I have invested time and effort in learning that method of cooking. Slow cookers braise food in liquid at low heat. Most slow cookers made from the 1950s to the early 21st century used ceramic crocks heated by a single electric heating element- low powered and poorly …
The hypothesis of Catching Fire is that cooking food was a learned cultural practice that affected the physiological evolution of human beings. It used “external” energy to make eating and digesting food take less time and liberated people to get on with life. Ceramic cooking vessels were the dominant technology in societies in which people …
Joe Bageant was a journalist who wrote about how America misunderstood its white working class. He said in an inteview with the BBC in 2008 that white working class “rednecks” have political power, and were tending to conservative populism. Bageant’s comment on the financial crisis of 2008, Waltzing at the Doomsday Ball almost predicted the …
Android Apps evolve to keep up with technology: new versions of the Android OS, new features (e.g. Chromecast) I used PocketCasts happily to search for and download podcasts. It was acquired by some podcast content providers in 2018, and “upgraded” to version 7 in March 2019. I noticed bugs – the phone got hot and …
The language of dry beans is complicated. Botanical taxonomy and the language of farmers, markets and cooks are inconsistent. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization recognizes 11 types of dry pulses, the seeds of several legumes, harvested as dry grains: dry beans, dry broad beans, dry peas, chickpeas, cow peas, pigeon peas, lentils, bambara …
This was 2018:
A bread machine cannot produce the shapes associated with rustic, country hearth, or “artisan” bread. These loaves are shaped as round boules or oval batards (or torpedos), and baked on a deck, without a pan. A bread machine bakes a loaf in a pan. Artisan loaves tend to have firm or even crisp/crunchy crusts. There …
Steamed rice is rice cooked in water. It is not fried first (as with some pilaf, biryani, Mexican styles) or cooked as a risotto, paella, rice pudding, congee or other flavoured rice dish. Cooked rice can used in a dish, as an accompaniment to other dishes, fried or processed further, or added to other dishes …