Rice cooker

The electric rice cooker is one of the ingenious inventions (alongside instant ramen and synthetic glutamate) that we owe to Japan. It first appeared on the market in 1923, and it must be said that the rice cooker did not exactly have an easy start. It took decades for it to become widely accepted in Japanese and, by extension, global households. The breakthrough came in 1955 with the first automated rice cooker, designed with the help of engineer Yoshitada Minami and his wife Fumiko. They managed to determine the temperature dynamics required for cooking rice and equipped the rice cooker with a thermostat. However, the real boom did not come until the 1970s, when rice cookers began to feature a warming function. Modern rice cookers, whether presented as such by the manufacturer or not, can do much more than just cook rice. You can use them for baking, sous-vide cooking, or fermentation...

Each rice cooker comes with a scoop and a rice container, usually with a capacity of one go, which is roughly equivalent to 180 ml. I highly recommend using the scoop that came with your rice cooker to mix and serve rice. Keeping the inner layer of the pot in the best possible condition is key. When washing the pot, be gentle and careful, no scouring pads or aggressive solvents! The rice measuring cup is also a valuable tool that can turn complex mathematical calculations into an intuitive routine that you don't even think about.