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The battle to invent the automatic rice cooker

atlasobscura.com

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Re: The battle to invent the automatic rice cooker

#11

Post by jasode »

graycat wrote: post #2

Deleted. Mod, fix this attack on me.

>Cooking rice is difficult? Hmm ....

I didn't downvote your comment but your dismissive snark seems out of place since the _history_ of "tricky/difficult/labored" was explained in the article:

>It was painfully tricky. Cooking rice this way, says columnist and food writer Makiko Itoh, takes heat modulation: high heat until the water and rice boils, then low heat, then high heat again. “And that, with a wood-burning stove, is very difficult.” Each day, Japanese women rose at dawn and labored for several sweaty hours to make rice. (A contemporary restaurant in Nara, Japan, offers a kamado-cooking experience that starts with 15 minutes of pumping a bellows to fan the flames.)

Re: The battle to invent the automatic rice cooker

#12

Post by imglorp »

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #9
graycat wrote: post #2

Deleted. Mod, fix this attack on me.

Jo Koy has a bit about cooking rice on his newest special that points out an even easier trick. Put as much rice as you want to cover the bottom of the pot, then put your index finger on the rice and fill the water up to the first knuckle. ...But for the next step I'm using my instapot while I do something else.

I was taught this method also, by a Japanese woman in the 80s. I think it works because the cooker cuts the heat exactly when it's all turned to steam, which is held at a minimum pressure by the lid. So the amount of water is very forgiving because there's those two automatic functions regulating the process.

Re: The battle to invent the automatic rice cooker

#14

Post by spaceflunky »

The science behind a rice cooker is fascinatingly clever, yet painfully simple.

In short, boiling water temperature plateaus due to the latent heat of vaporization. When the water is gone the temperature of the pot starts to rise. The rice cooker uses this principle to control the switch. The switch is held by magnet. When the pot finishes boiling the heat rises and exceeds the curie point of the magnet, which means the magnet ceases to be magnetic, and the (no longer) magnetic switch is released turning the rice cooker off.

Here’s a great video explaining how it works.

https://youtu.be/RSTNhvDGbYI

Re: The battle to invent the automatic rice cooker

#15

Post by mynameishere »

claudeganon wrote: post #7
graycat wrote: post #2

Deleted. Mod, fix this attack on me.

I’m not sure how you could read the article and miss the historical context. In postwar Japan, many women were not cooking with saucepans on gas or electric ranges with high-quality, industrially processed rice: >For centuries, most Japanese cooks made rice with a kamado, a box-shaped range topped with a heavy iron pot. It was painfully tricky. Cooking rice this way, says columnist and food writer Makiko Itoh, takes…

It was painfully tricky

"Until now, this was the only way to get cooked rice from rice..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viejY6UZ5Bk&t=42s

Okay, but in that case the best thing to invent would be a non-horrible stove. I've made rice, and even as an incompetent cook, it really is a non-issue.

Re: The battle to invent the automatic rice cooker

#16

Post by cycrutchfield »

ThePhysicist wrote: post #10

For people that regularly eat rice, buying a decent rice cooker is really a no-brainer. Cooking rice in a pan is possible and you can obtain good results if you're careful and turn the heat down at the right moment before the rice starts to stick to the bottom of the pan and burn, it's easy to miss though. A rice cooker makes this process so much easier though: Put in the rice, the adequate amount of water, press a b…

IMO the Korean brands are the market leaders. Check out Cuckoo

Re: The battle to invent the automatic rice cooker

#19

Post by jrimbault »

spaceflunky wrote: post #14

The science behind a rice cooker is fascinatingly clever, yet painfully simple. In short, boiling water temperature plateaus due to the latent heat of vaporization. When the water is gone the temperature of the pot starts to rise. The rice cooker uses this principle to control the switch. The switch is held by magnet. When the pot finishes boiling the heat rises and exceeds the curie point of the magnet, which means…

It's basically the same physics involved in this toaster https://youtu.be/1OfxlSG6q5Y same channel.

Thing heats and deforms (change properties), when it reaches temperature n, thing deforms just a bit too much, cuts electrical contact.

Re: The battle to invent the automatic rice cooker

#20

Post by claudeganon »

mynameishere wrote: post #15
claudeganon wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure how you could read the article and miss the historical context. In postwar Japan, many women were not cooking with saucepans on gas or electric ranges with high-quality, industrially processed rice: >For centuries, most Japanese cooks made rice with a kamado, a box-shaped range topped with a heavy iron pot. It was painfully tricky. Cooking rice this way, says columnist and food writer Makiko Itoh, takes…

It was painfully tricky "Until now, this was the only way to get cooked rice from rice..." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viejY6UZ5Bk&t=42s Okay, but in that case the best thing to invent would be a non-horrible stove. I've made rice, and even as an incompetent cook, it really is a non-issue.

Most Japanese houses postwar were not equipped to have good gas ranges. The article highlights that widespread electrification had occurred, which favored rice cookers, especially because cooking food on electric ranges is anathema for huge swathes of Japanese cuisine.

The standard to be measured against was also, again, Kamado rice, which most rice cookers today would struggle to meet and I guarantee few bachelors are measuring up to with their sauce pans.

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