History of the Pressure Cooker

I taught my neighbor Nancy how to use her pressure cooker yesterday.  We made hardboiled eggs and millet. So fun!

The pressure cooker first appeared in 1679 as Papin's Digester, named for its inventor, French-born physicist Denis Papin. The cooker heats water to produce very hot steam which forces the temperature inside the pot as high as 266 °F (130 °C), significantly higher than the maximum heat possible in an ordinary saucepan.

Vischer's pressure cooker was the first designed for home use, and its success led to competition among American and European manufacturers. At the 1939 New York World's Fair, the National Pressure Cooker Company, later renamed National Presto Industries, introduced its own pressure cooker.