Rice Cookers

Toshiba of Japan claims to have released the first electric rice cooker in 1955, but Japan’s Ministry of Trade and Technology asserts that the devices first emerged in 1946, around the same time as the Japanese constitution. The earliest automatic rice cookers bear a resemblance to slow cookers used for stewing, with an electric element in a cylindrical base applying heat to a removable cooking vessel. A thermostat triggers a power shutoff when the vessel temperature exceeds the boiling point of water, ensuring that the cooked rice does not scorch. Before the introduction of electric cookers, steamed rice, which requires slow cooking under a tight-fitting lid, was generally made in pots designed for the purpose, heated over fire. Photographic records exist of large, lidded, iron “rice cookers” found by American troops on the Marshall Islands at the end of World War II; they had been used as defensive shields by the Japanese.