The Warm and Fuzzy Rice Cooker Episode

This appliance was created to take the fuss out of cooking rice – but modern models can do a lot more than that. Anney and Lauren dig into the science and history behind rice cookers.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hello, and welcome to Savor Protection of I Heeart Radio.
I'm Annie Reese and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and today we
have an episode for you about rice cookers. Yes, so
it's it's well known to listeners. I'm afraid of cooking rice.
And in fact, I just received a message from a
listener about how to cook rice. And I love you

(00:30):
very You're very very kind to me, and I really
love it. How many people have written and been like,
it's okay, Annie, here's um. But I did actually recently
inherit a rice cooker, and I am too afraid to
use it. It's supposed to be very easy. I'm actually
I cooked rice the other day and I looked at

(00:51):
the rice cooker. I had done the research for this,
and I was like, nope, not today. Well okay, okay, Well,
what what kind of race cooker is it? It's a
I think it's an instant pot. Actually, oh okay, all right,
I'm a little scared of those two. I've just never
used one, so I don't know. It's the unknown that, yeah, exactly.

(01:15):
And I don't have the book because I got it
from somebody. I don't have the instruction. Well, you can
look that up on the internet. Annie. I did look
it up, and I'm still all right, that's all right,
that's hey, no, no no, no, new things are scary. That
changes here, that's I get it. I get it. Um.
And also, I'm so sorry that I've made you do
two episodes about things you fear in the same week. Yes,

(01:39):
you're trying to make me up a mental breakdown or okay,
this is my long con. Yeah, this is actually some
kind of weird airventioned therapy breakdown situation. Yeah. Yeah, I'm like,
all right, what what can we work on next week?
Let's work on you. I'm the subject of some strange

(02:02):
podcast I'm not aware of. I was telling you I
went to go visit my mom a couple of weekends ago,
and I was telling her about the rice cooker and
how I thought the jingle at the end it was
very frightening. And she said to me in a very
fond but exasperated voice, you make everything frightening, Annie, might

(02:26):
be all those horror movies you watch. And I was like, yeah,
maybe it's pretty because it's pretty true. Like I feel
like about twenty percent of the time that I say something,
your immediate reaction is like, oh, that's like a horror
movie and it's nothing near horror. I'm like, I was
talking about mangoes and you're like, I know exactly, it's

(02:54):
about where we are. But you you do not fear
the rice. No. No, I love a rice cooker, um,
mostly because I mean I'm perfectly capable of cooking rice
on a stovetop. Um, like you kind of have to
pay attention to it, which is annoying. Um. So I
love a rice cooker because like, as long as you

(03:16):
have like used the rice cooker a couple of times,
you know what you're dealing with. You can set it
and forget it and do everything else that you're trying
to do and come back to it when the rice
is done and maybe check on it once or twice
as opposed to like twice a hec in minute. Um
and yeah, and it just and it comes out in
this rice and then you have rice. And I like rice.

(03:37):
So this is great. It sounds great, and people love
rice cookers for all kinds of stuff that I was
really impressed with. Yeah, my googling just before we stepped
in here, um turned up that Roger Ebert like like
of Siskel and Ebert wrote a whole cookbook of just

(04:01):
like like recipes for what he called the pot, which
is just a rice cooker. Yeah, so who knew? I know,
I mean everyone I know that has one is very fond.
I just wasn't aware. I wasn't aware of how much
stuff you could do with it. I mean, at a
certain point, it's it's it's just a hot thing that

(04:24):
you can put stuff in, so and people put all
kinds of stuff in there, very greedy. Gosh they do,
they do. But you can see our rice episode information
on that one. Also induction cooking. Yeah, yeah, that's going
to come up. Yeah, and this is one of those where, uh,

(04:47):
this will spawn many future episodes as well. Awesome fun
with pronunciation. Yeah, a lot of these are Japanese means,
and I can hypothetically help you a little bit. Um.
But also, my Japanese accent is really borked. My my

(05:10):
professor in college had an Okinawa accent by way of Boston. Um,
so I'm not sure what I sound like. I know
a listener. I'm sorry, I can't really remember who, but
hopefully you're still listening because it's very kind but rotated
and said that your Japanese accent was very southern and cute.
So well that yep that there you go, there, there

(05:32):
you go, So I will take it. I think it's
very sweet on your behaf All right with all of that, yeah,
I guess that brings us to our question. Rice cookers.

(05:52):
What are they? Well, a rice cooker is an electric
appliance that's meant to cook rice to perfection automatically, with
very little intervention from the human cook. You just measure
in your dry rice and your water, You turn it on,
and in like half an hour or so, you've got lovely,

(06:12):
tender rice. Um. It's a robot that, if it could
want things, would want you to eat good rice. Uh.
It's it's like a like an automatic coffee machine, but
for for rice. I love it. It sounds sweet, But
immediately I'm like, what if the AI rice cooker like

(06:34):
you make bad rice, only good rice? Ah? There it is,
there it is. I can't help it. I can't help it. Yeah. Yeah, well, okay,
backing away from the dystopian ai AI horror, back back

(06:59):
to rice. Okay, uh, okay, what when you're when you're
cooking plain rice, what you're usually doing is boiling dried
rice grains in water like like equal parts to twice
as much water by volume, depending on the type of
rice you're talking about. Um. The rice is done when

(07:22):
all of the water has absorbed into the rice and
or steamed off, and the grains are whatever degree of
tender you're looking for. Um. It is ideal if you
can do this without like melting a layer of rice
into a sticky, burnt mass at the bottom of the pot. Yes,

(07:43):
And there are a few ways to accomplish this automatically. Um.
All are going to start with an electric heating element
set into a base that can also hold a cooking pot. Uh.
You add rice and water to the pot you cover
with the included lid. Um, the heating element heats the pot,
which boils the water. But how does it know when

(08:05):
it's done? Yes? Exactly, Oh okay, how does it know? Yes,
this has turned into like one of those investigative shows
I used to watch when I was a kid. But
how did they know? This is not unsolved mysteries? This

(08:29):
is just rice cookers. It's not It's an unsolved mystery
to me. So okay, alright, alright, well let's get into it. Okay, alright,
UM the classic technology, the least expensive, the type I've
got in my kitchen. UM operates on a simple heat
sensitive magnetized switch. Okay, uh. You turn this type of

(08:50):
rice cooker on by pressing down a switch on the
outside of the unit, and when you do, you'll hear
like this little clunk. UM. That's because the switch is
connected to a lever that brings to UM. A lever
or spring depending on that brings to conducive surfaces in
contact with each other, completing an electrical circuit and thus

(09:13):
powering the heating element. UM. The circuit stays closed because
the two surfaces are magnetic, but one surface, the upper
surface of the pair, is made of a material that's
only magnetic up to like a hundred to a hundred
and two degrees celsius, like right above to twelve fahrenheit.

(09:33):
And that's the boiling point of water. Uh. And that's
important because okay, so um, as the rice is cooking
because water boils at a hundred celsius and won't go
above that temperature at like normal earth pressure, the temperature
at the bottom of the pot holds steady at a hundred.
The temperature is in check thanks to the presence of

(09:55):
the water. But when all of the water is absorbed
in or boiled off, the heating element can get to
work on the pot and the rice itself, which can
get considerably hotter at normal Earth pressure. So the temperature
at the bottom of the pan leaps up, at which
point our temporary magnet stops being magnetic and drops the

(10:16):
other half of the pair, breaking the circuit and turning
the heating element off with another little clunk. Okay, that's
pretty cool. That's pretty cool, right, yeah, but not too scary.
Pretty red, pretty red, okay, okay, alright, So that's the
cooking function. What about the warming function? All right? This

(10:37):
one works thanks to another type of heat sensitive switch
called a bimetal switch. UM. A bimetal switch is a
type of switch that's made up of two types of
metal sandwiched together. Makes sense, yeah, Um. Each of these
two types is chosen because they're bendable and because they
expand at different rates when exposed to heat, So the

(11:00):
switch will start out flat, but will bend one way
or the other at different temperatures because the metals are
expanding or shrinking at different rates. Um. And you can
use this property to connect and disconnect a circuit at
different temperatures UM. In the case of our rice cooker,
at around sixty celsius or like a D forty fahrenheit,
which is fairly cool UM, this s which will bend

(11:22):
and connect the circuit, turning the heating element on. But
at around eighty celsius or one five fahrenheit, fairly hot. Uh,
the switch will bend the other way, breaking the circuit
and turning the element off. And it will keep toggling,
holding the temperature of the pot nice and warm until
you unplug the unit. Okay, yeah, that's pretty cool. I

(11:48):
get we. I found so many essays of it you
did to Lauren, of people just like waxing poetic about
their love of their rice cooker that they might have
named um and has passed on. And I was like, oh,
I didn't I didn't find any of those. Uh. In fact,
I found it relatively difficult to to get to the

(12:10):
bottom of this direct explanation. Like I wound up. I
wound up trying to read schematics that are all in Chinese.
A lot of them were translated into English and very well. UM.
But like all of the all of the diagrams were
in Chinese, and I was like, oh, I think that's
what they're talking about, but it's hard to tell. Hard

(12:30):
to tell. Yeah, well, I mean I was mostly reading
about like college students who were they loved their rice
cooker and wanted to write about it. So yeah, um, well,
of course we humans are not confined to manual physical

(12:51):
switches anymore. We have digital switches. Yes, not still not scary.
It's okay, all right, come back, come back, all right. Uh.
Digital rice cookers contain digital thermometers that are connected to
like a real simple computer that can be programmed at
the touch of a few buttons on the outside of

(13:12):
the unit to uh, to heat or warm the pot,
to particular temperature settings for particular lengths of time, like
the way that we use standard microwaves. Yeah. Um, okay,
but if you're gonna go ahead and put a computer
into a rice cooker, why not ask it to do
a little bit more work for you? Yeah? Yeah, yeah.

(13:36):
I feel like I'm on an emotional roller coast. This
isn't skya, don't worry. Uh, And now I'm immediately more
worried than I was before. Alright, no, no, no, no, no, no,
it's it's cool. Uh, rice cookers. It turns out we're

(13:57):
one of the first home appliances to make use of
the theory of fuzzy logic. Oh yeah, So fuzzy logic
is sort of what it sounds like. Okay, Uh, it's
like logic with variables. Yeah. Digital devices operate on boolean
logic ones and zeros on or off, yes or no. Yeah. Um.

(14:22):
Fuzzy logic opens up the field of answers to all
of the numbers in between one and zero, like almost yes,
sort of, no, slightly yes. Um. It lets you program
algorithms to take variables into consideration, um, like not just
is it hot, but is it getting hotter quickly? Um,

(14:43):
and then make a decision about how to control the
temperature in that way. Um. The idea is that these
machines can adjust for the actual circumstances that are occurring
in real time, like maybe ambient pressure is making the
cooking go faster, maybe you added too much water U,
and the machine can adjust for that based on its
readings um, and cook the rice perfectly regardless. Yeah. It's

(15:08):
basically like trying to adjust a human error yeah yeah, yeah,
and and dealing with dealing with what's actually happening more
in the way that a human would. Yes, and one note,
I learned all about boolean logic because I know if
you've ever played mass effects. But in the third one

(15:29):
there was a particular death I was very unhappy with.
So I went into the code and just changed the
you've made that's hilarious, all right, I feel pretty good
about it. Well there, yeah, as well, you should thank you, okay, okay.

(15:54):
So um, So those are the technologies that that direct
how the temperature controls work. But of course there are
also different technologies available, uh for for making things hot
than just plain old electric heating element UM, such as
induction cookers and pressure cookers. UH. Induction rice cookers work

(16:16):
off of induction technology, heating the pot directly instead of
an element beneath the pot that then heats the pot. Yeah,
um cr induction episode for more on that UM, and
can thus offer a better control over the temperature and pressure.
Rice cookers UM seal and pressurize their contents to allow
for faster cooking times and hotter temperatures. Pressure cooking is

(16:38):
a whole other episode, UM for sure, for sure for sure, yes,
uh so, depending on all of these different technologies, and features.
You can get a pressure cooker for like under thirty
bucks or over five d um. Yeah yeah, what what
on earth? You may be asking? Does a rice cooker

(17:01):
do that costs five? Um? Well? Um. One from Zojadusium
has settings for white rice of varying textures like do
you want it do you want it soft? Do you
want it firm? Do you want it sticky? Do you
want it dry? Um, savory rices, sweet or sushi rices,
jasmine rice, brown rice, germinated brown rice, mixed types of rices,

(17:24):
coongi steel cut oats, rapid cooking, automatic or extended warming,
and a reheat function. All right, pretty impressive. O there
and there you can you can get rice cookers. It
will do all kinds of things. Um. Other features from
various machines include um steaming other foods than rice, UM

(17:47):
cake baking option, auto cleaning UM and delayed timers that
you can pre set your machine to start cooking at
like a particular time. Now, this might actually be useful
for me because my oven sucks. I can't control the
temperature in there. That that's the most technical term. Yeah, yeah,
and so I I recently was trying to cook a

(18:09):
whole chicken because I knew my oven would not not work.
I tried to cook it in the instant pot, but
it wouldn't fit there. So there I should I should explore. Okay, Okay, yes,
this might be a good solution for me, is what
I'm trying to say. Yeah, absolutely, uh And oh one

(18:33):
one other feature. Okay, so what if you do want
a layer of crisp, golden brown rice at the bottom
of your pot. There are rice cookers for that too. Um.
The models that I've seen are referred to as Persian
rice cookers. Um that that golden crust on rice is
popular in Iranian cuisine. So after the main cooking is done,

(18:53):
a timer will hold the non stick pot to the
heat long enough to just crisp the bottom, adding vegetable
oil as part of the recipe and helps with the process.
But yeah, um uh. And apparently Iran was one of
the places that this uh one Hong Kong distributor started
working with pretty early on in um in rice cooker history, yes,

(19:15):
which we will talk about we will not yet, yeah yeah,
but but right, yeah, this, this, as we've been talking about,
this is not all that rice cookers can do because
at a certain point, right it's just a hot pad
with a fitted pot. Um. So anything that you want
to warm, warm up or cook, especially anything with a
lot of liquid can be done in a rice cooker

(19:36):
with enough tenacity. Um. There are recipes out there for
like poached fruit, for like hard boiled eggs, for soups,
all kinds of things, all kinds of stuff. Well a
lot about the nutrition. Don't eat. Don't eat home appliances. Again.
I know there's somebody some superhero slash villain slash super

(19:59):
robot transformer situation where they probably do eat rice cookers,
but um, yeah, you you should not unless year that
unless you're that robot. And if you are, Hello, yeah, hi, welcome,
welcome to the podcast. We please don't eat my home appliances,

(20:23):
not using them, not ours particularly. Yeah. Uh, this is
reminding me of a browsing conversation we had about The
Brave Little Toaster the other day. Yeah, that movie hoofta exactly.
But anyway, yes, emails, if you so desire, Uh, we

(20:43):
do have some numbers for you. Uh huh. Um. As
of the global rice cooker market was valued at three
point two billion dollars or more. I saw a couple
of numbers up to like five ish billion dollars anyway. Um.
According to that report, though, about two thirds of the
units sold that year were household appliances as opposed to

(21:06):
commercial appliances. UM. That same year, a different report stated
that over a hundred and thirty four million units were produced. Wow. Um,
but yeah, it's a big business. Um. Just for example,
the Chinese electronics manufacturing giant um Media group. I've never

(21:28):
heard it out loud. Um, it looks like media. Sure
they buy some two hundred metric tons of rice every
year just for like rice cooker research. Wow. Yeah, And
that's been a pretty common thread throughout the history. A
lot of experimentation around the rice cooker. Oh absolutely, and
we are going to get into that as soon as

(21:49):
we get back from a quick break. For a word
from our sponsors, and we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes,
thank you so yes. As discussed in our rice episode,
rice has long been a very important staple too much

(22:10):
of the world and still is today. Um. So that
means that cooking rice has long been very important too,
and historically it hasn't been the easiest thing to cook. Um.
For instance, in Japan, rice was traditionally cooked on a
large stove that was set up in the corner of
the kitchen yeah called a model um These are typically

(22:31):
um box shaped stoves that direct heat to the to
the bottom of an iron pot. Right. And in order
to boil and cook rice, a person, typically a woman,
would first have to gather wood, start a fire, place
the pot with the water and rice over the fire,
and then watch as the rice cooked. Since fires can
be very temperamental, yeah, and the ideal temperatures um for

(22:55):
cooking very during different parts of the rice cooking process.
Because as of this, people have been trying to improve
the process of cooking rice for a long time, and
particularly perhaps in Japan. Uh and the history of the
rice cooker in Japan specifically really begins in the nineteen twenties.
Mitsubushi Electric launched a very simple industrial rice cooker in

(23:17):
nineteen twenties three, and in the thirties the Japanese military
utilized a multi cooker in the field, but it would
be a few decades before the home rice cooker became
a reality. So when World War Two ended in nineteen
forty five, a Japanese man named Matsuru Ibuka opened a
radio shop in an old department stores, abandoned telephone switchboard room.

(23:39):
I love this, I know, I love it too, And
often the payment he received for fixing a customer's radio
was uncooked rice like perhaps attempted to cook but not cooked,
or entirely uncooked. Um. Either way, Ibuka was already interested
inventing an appliance for the millions of homes with electricity,
and this inspired him to invent an electric rice cooker. Uh.

(24:00):
And it was basically a wooden bucket outfitted with aluminum electrodes,
and you can find pictures of it. However, the quality
of the rice that this product made was often undercooked
or overcooks. UM. It wasn't consistent at all because of
things like unregulated electrical currents, the type of rice used,
and how much water was used, like the quality of

(24:23):
rice really mattered. Um. It was viewed as a failure
and it was never released in the market. Years later, though,
Ibuka renamed his company to Sony and Sony. I think
at their their museum they have this rice cooker that
you can look cool? I know, right uh. A few
years later, as salesman from Toshiba named Shogo Yamada went

(24:45):
around Japan promoting the company's electric washing machines, and also
at the same time surveying women about what would improve
their lives and make their lives easier. One of the
things he discovered was that the women, a lot of
the women reported spending a about three hours a day
making rice. Um. Yeah, So he took these findings back

(25:05):
to Toshiba and tasked an engineer named Yoshitata Minami with
coming up with a solution. Uh. And he passed the
project onto his wife, Fumiko, because rice was quote women's work. Um.
And because it was women's work, it wasn't a priority
at the company, because it's mostly men running these big companies.
And in fact, there was even a belief that a

(25:27):
woman looking to get more sleep by saving time from
finding a better way to cook rice was a quote
failed housewife. Well I know who madness. However, Uh, just
because it was in priority didn't mean it went away. Uh.
And Yoshi Tata, he knew engineering, Fomiko new cooking rice. UM.

(25:49):
So they took out a loan to buy themselves some
time to experiment, and Fomiko studied the rice cookers that
were available, and from nifty six the couple they really
really experimented. They joined all kinds of things fumiko cooked
rice and all types of environments for example, like on
the roof and the rain, like all of these things. Yeah,

(26:10):
and eventually they arrived at the quote a double pot
indirect cooking method. Uh and this isn't quite what we're
used to today. Um okay, So double pot um. The
two pots in question would be nested as smaller into
the larger. You'd put rice into these smaller interior pot
and water um around it in the larger exterior pot,

(26:33):
put a lid over the whole thing. Heat the larger
pot that would create steam that would cook the rice
while protecting it from burning because the heat was not
directly on the rice pot. Double pot indirect. Yeah, yes,
pretty cool. In six the company released the electric rice
cooker in Japan. At first, the price point was a

(26:55):
hard sell for a lot of women, but Yamato once
again traveled around demowing the product, and when he would
show that not only could it would it save massive
amounts of time cooking rice, it could also be used
to cook a popular but difficult rice dish called tachycomi
gohan that often burned. And after that, these rice cookers
started selling pretty fast. Uh. Yeah. Takey, called by Gohan

(27:19):
is a dish where rice is cooked along with stuff
like vegetables or mushrooms or proteins, plus a broth and
or sauce kind of situation. Um, instead of steaming the
rice separately from the other cooked items. Um. So it
can be right, a little bit trickier anyway, yes. Uh.
And by the next year after it come out, to

(27:41):
Sheba was producing a monthly two hundred thousand rice cookers. Yeah.
And it changed the lives of numerous women, something to
Sheba really leaned into. And they're advertising promising to liberate
women from hours of standing and watching rice cook There's
a whole documentary on it and an essay on it
I couldn't access, but I'm very very very interested in. Um. Yeah. Anyway.

(28:03):
Numbers from Toshiba's site indicate that by nineteen sixty, fifty
percent of Japanese homes had a rice cooker, and that
in nineteen seventy quote total annual output had reached twelve million,
fifty thousand cookers. Wow. Yeah, yes, um and Toshiba's success

(28:24):
inspired a slew of competitors. The company now known as
Pana Sonic was in turmoil because they've been trying to
get a rice cooker for a while, and they they
were like absolutely devastated that Toshiba beat them to the punch,
since home appliances was more their expertise. Yeah, um Panasonic UM,

(28:45):
then known as Matsushida, the then president, gave employee Tetsuno
Suke Sakamoto a brutal dressing down. Sakamoto's goal was to
find an international market for rice cookers, so this was
something he long wanted to do. This was not good
news for him, but UM he studied Tshiba's model with
a goal of surpassing it, particularly finding a way to

(29:08):
use less metal, resulting in a cheaper product. UM and
the company released their one pot rice cooker in nineteen
fifty six, and Sakamoto became head of the company's rice
cooker division. UH this is the type that we are
familiar with today. Water and rice in a single pot,
uses less electricity, less metal, and switches itself off when

(29:30):
the rice is cooked. They were exporting these two Japanese
communities in the United States a year later in ninety seven,
and in nineteen fifty nine they began exporting to Hong Kong, Yes,
which about brings us to our teaser that we had
at the Yes. So Sakamoto worked with the Hong Kong
based distributor for the company to modify their rice cooker

(29:52):
to make it more appealing to people in Hong Kong,
and from there realized his dream of making it international,
like you can make these little tweaks for different markets. Yeah, yeah,
and he traveled around the world introducing this product. Hong
Kong entrepreneur William Mung was really instrumental in this. He
just believed in this product, like he went door to

(30:13):
door with it. He solicited and really listened to customer feedback.
UM he created a legit empire built on rice cookers
worth some billion dollars by the time of his death
in UM, and Hong Kong was also just a very
strategic pick for global distribution because as a free port

(30:35):
they could make leaps across borders a lot easier like
China and also beyond UM. By nineteen sixty seven, they
were selling a hundred thousand units a year, and a
rice cooker from this brand called National Brand UM is
in the Smithsonians collection. I love it and that's one
of my favorite things in doing the researchers, it felt

(30:57):
like a lot of people had a specific brand and
it really had loyalty too. Yeah. And what I found
was the Tat Tongue steamer, which was introduced in Taiwan
in the nineteen sixties. Uh. Though it just had one switch,
it could do all kinds of things, from cooking rice
for heating foods or brazen dishes. At the time of
things like microwaves and toasters weren't super common in Taiwan,

(31:18):
so this steamer really was used for all kinds of stuff. Yeah. Um,
microwaves for home use didn't really hit it big in
general until like the late sixties or early seventies. Um.
That is a whole other episode that I've been avoiding.
Yep I was mentioned previously. Huh huh um. During the
nineteen seventies, though, rice cookers became more widely available in

(31:42):
the United States and hit it big, not just in
Asian diaspora communities, but also in African diaspora communities that
had been growing rice here for a couple of centuries already,
like in South Carolina and Louisiana. In nineteen seven d three,
another Japanese manufacturer, the aforementioned Zoji doshi Uh debut a

(32:06):
rice cooker with a keep warm function. Yeah yes, and
computer controlled rice cookers were introduced in nineteen nine, and
then in three Zocherushi introduced a rice cooker that became
one of the first consumer appliances to use that fuzzy logic.
Fuzzy logic. What you say, I don't know, but I'll

(32:28):
dry my buss No, I think I get this, okay,
um in you see Berkeley professor let Feeza A and
I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly introduced the fuzzy sets theory.
So very basically fuzzy sets theory has to do with
mathematical sets, and for most of these sets, an item
either belongs or does not belong. Like the Booleon thing

(32:49):
we were talking about earlier, right right, Yeah, exactly. The
fuzzy part allows for more wiggle room in that um
so working off this framework is a Day proposed fuzzy
logic in nineteen seventy three, and also very very basically
fuzzy logic. In fuzzy logic, something can belong in a
set to varying degrees. So when it comes to machines
like rice cookers, fuzzy logic introduces the human concept of

(33:12):
almost are are words like that in order to adjust
things like temperature? Mm hmmm, mm hmmm. It's pretty cool. Yeah.
And then induction rice cookers were introduced in nineteen mm hmm.
In the nineteen nineties, South Korea debut the pressure rice cooker.
It cooks rice to like a like a softer but

(33:33):
denser texture. Yeah. Um. And in the first smart rice
cooker launched from Chinese company UMDOMI uh, I think we
think sure, let's go with it. Um this this rice
cooker allowed you to adjust how the rice is cooked
using a taste curve via an app on your phone.

(33:57):
Like like the thing was WiFi enabled and so you
could control the cooking on your phone. Wow, the innovation continues.
Oh yeah, yeah, oh yeah, it was, and it's still
kind of it's it's still kind of competitive to like
like company to company and country to country. M it

(34:18):
was it was cool to read about like all the
the things companies are working on the features they're adding.
But then also I wouldn't call it backlash, but some
people are like, let's go back to basics. I like
my very simple nineteen sixty top tong or whatever it is. Yeah, yeah,
like it a certain I mean like I would certainly
be willing to try all of these fancy things out.

(34:40):
Um and and you know it's it's science in the kitchen.
That's great, like like see like see how it works. Um.
But but I definitely got the one that I own
for like nineteen bucks one button, two functions. Uh, you
know before before I found a good description of those
two functions, I genuinely almost took mine apart to see

(35:03):
how it works. It is cool, Lauren and I were
talking about this was a fun research one. Yeah. Yeah,
I really do love these technology episodes. They're they're they're
just such a such a right turn at Albuquerque from yes,
from our usual subject matter. Yes, and we would love

(35:27):
listeners if you have any strong preferences any rice cooker
or anything you make it there that yeah, not as
well known. That would be so great if you could
share it with us. Oh please please please yes, um,
because that that is what we have to say about
rice cookers ourselves for today. Um. We do have some

(35:49):
listener mail for you though, Yes we do, and we'll
get into that after a quick break. For a word
from our sponsor they we're back. Thank you, Yes, thank you,
we're back with this listener. Does he do like a

(36:12):
steaming thing? That's what scares me too. When I have
the rice cooker, you open up at the end and
all the steam goes out. It makes a really haunting sound.
I've never I um, I've okay, uh, well, maybe maybe

(36:34):
the thing is is that everything you own is haunted,
and this is why you're so terrified of everything. You're right,
You're right. I actually I think you might be because,
like I feel like everything I own doesn't work correctly,
it is slightly dangerous. Okay, yeah, you know, maybe maybe

(37:00):
it's you know, why didn't we listen to her like
we should have. We should have been listening to you
this whole time, like it was full of danger for
you because your devices are haunted. I would love, uh
if somebody did, like a we were just talking about
depictions of podcasters and popular media. Somebody did like a

(37:20):
true crime, like is Annie haunted podcasts? Or they just
dissect a random statements throughout my life and we're like, man,
the next time that there's a series of pitches for
one of these horror anthologies, I am. I mean, you
can pitch it if you want to, because it's technically you, um.

(37:40):
But if you don't, I'm definitely going to pitch that.
I think it would be hilarious, illuminating, terrifying, just like
this episode. You would have to voice it though. Wow,

(38:01):
we can get real meadow with this. I like it.
Oh my goodness. I also doesn't work in my apartment,
MICHAELA wrote, and I hope I'm pronouncing your name correctly. UM.
I was listening to your recent Espresso episode, which was
perfectly timed because a friend is taking a job in

(38:22):
Italy and I was sending him recommendations but also some
of the social cues and expectations that I picked up
during my study abroad in Italy. At the end, you
asked about coffee culture in Italy compared to the US
and if we've just had Starbucks imprinted in our brains.
The answer is yes, Um, I did study abroad fifteen
years ago and it was already apparent. Then me and

(38:43):
three others in my class all flew over on the
same flight and landed in Rome after sixteen hours of
travel from California. We needed caffeine and found a coffee shop.
My friend ordered a latte. The server asked if she
wanted it hot or cold. She said hot, because why
would you drink a cold latte. When the barista handed
her the cup, it was literally a cup of warm milk.

(39:05):
She was so confused at first, but then realized that
latte is the Italian word for milk and all she
had asked for. She should have asked for a cafe latte,
which is what she was expecting, because those are actual
words in Italian that means actual things. But we blame Starbucks. Um.
Italy also has very specific rules about when you can
order certain types of coffee. I remember we went out

(39:27):
to dinner one night and after the meal, I asked
for a cappuccino. The surper looked at me like I
was crazy and asked if I meant an espresso. No,
I wanted a cappuccino. They tried convincing me that I
should order an espresso, but that's not what I wanted.
I later learned that cappuccino is only for the morning.
Espresso is the only coffee option for after dinner. But

(39:48):
the Starbucks version of coffee culture, I was used to
ordering whatever was on the menu, no matter what time
of day it was. There are other little nuances to
how coffee works in Italy, and I'm pretty fascinated by
all the rules that surround didn't drink there, especially coming
from a country where you can order whatever you want,
whenever you want, in whatever size portion you want. Yeah,
that is interesting. Ah oh I love so much Trouble.

(40:13):
I love it too, but I would be I'd be lost.
Oh yeah, yeah. Now I'm I'm continually terrified of Like
I feel like I'm bad at human ng in the
culture that I grew up in I exist in every
day so and like like like those little social interactions
fill me with mild terror because unlike your devices, I

(40:34):
am just haunted. It's just me. Um And so like
I have a genuine fear of of of of travel
because I'm like, oh, I'm gonna be extra or wrong
all the time. I feel that too. I mean, and

(40:57):
you try to, like I try to do the research
before I go. But there's some things you just don't
think too look up or like that no one thinks
to even tell you because it's so kind of base level,
right yeah, like not like fear is a strong word,
it's anxiety, I guess, is right, Yeah, um, but no
good good tips. Thank you. Yes, I'll know not to

(41:22):
order a lot unless you just want milk, unless I
just want milk, which would be a strange day for
me particularly, But yeah, but could happen? Uh, Kina wrote again,
I hope I'm pronouncing your name correctly. Um Uh. Sumac
and lemonade episodes were back to back. But what about

(41:42):
sumac lemonade? From what I found, you steep about a
cup of sumac in about four cups of cold water
or hot if you like um and can stop there
for sumac t You can make sumac lemonade by making
a simple syrup of even parts of sugar and water
and one and a half to three tablespoons of crushed
sumac berries mixed into water or seltzer um. I wanted

(42:05):
to know if our wild sumac here in the US
is the same plant as the spice used in Zatar,
and of course it's not. According to the University of Colorado, Boulder,
the US has thirty five species in the genus russ,
the most abundant being Rus glabra glabra. Sure, the Middle
Eastern spice is mainly Rus coriaria um. However, red berried

(42:29):
varieties native to the America's are edible, just as the
Middle Eastern varieties are. As you said on the podcast,
the white berries are on poison sumac. Don't eat those.
I've I've made sumac lemonade once a few years ago,
and I was a little squeamish because the sumac came
from outside and was dirty, and how does one wash
the berries without washing the flavorful fluff off of them.

(42:52):
I'm much less squeamish today and planned to try again
late this summer. That sounds delicious, It does, it does. Yeah.
That is a very popular drink um in many places
where varieties of seat grow um. And it sounds so nice,
lovely and refreshing, and it is so hot, so yeah, yes,

(43:18):
that sounds good. Well. Thanks to both of those listeners
for writing in. If you would like to write to us,
you can our email as hello at saber pod dot com.
We're also on social media. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook,
and Instagram at saver pod and we do hope to
hear from you. Savor is production of I Heart Radio.
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can visit

(43:39):
the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our
superproducers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening,
and we hope that lets more good things are coming
your way.