Crockpot History

Slow cooking has been used as a cooking technique since prehistoric times. The technique involves cooking food for a long period of time at a low heat. The net result is a full fusion of flavors with naturally tough meats and ingredients being rendered very tender.

Early History

In early times, items such as roots, vegetables and meats were wrapped in leaves and placed to the side of a fire for a long period of time. Early cooks discovered that cooking this way tenderized tough plant and animal materials, and released more flavor into the food. This concept was carried over into pot-based cooking over fires and eventually to stoves.

Electric Slow Cookers

This tradition of slow cooking was first commercialized by the Naxon Corp. with its electric slow cooker intended for beans. Rival Corp. bought Naxon in 1971. Rival redesigned and rebranded the bean cooker as the crockpot. The original crockpot's stoneware liner wasn't removable. In 1974, the product was redesigned with a removable liner to ease cleaning. Aside from cosmetic changes and the addition of larger sizes, crockpots remained virtually unchanged until the introduction of a programmable crockpot in 2001.

Design

The main cooking container of a crockpot is a glazed ceramic pot with a glass lid. This container sits in a metal container with a thermostatically controlled heating element in the base. The weight of the glass seals the lid against the crock, thus building up a low-pressure inside the pot that assists in cooking the food. Crockpots offer two or more heat settings, with low being around 160 degrees and high being between 190 and 200 degrees.

Operation

To cook in a crockpot, ingredients are added with enough liquid to prevent the raw ingredients from boiling. Because the cookers have sealed to keep water from evaporating, less water is usually added to the crockpot than is usually required for stove-top cooking.

Advantages

The advantages of crockpot cooking have been known for thousands of years. Tough meat end up tender, the flavors of the various ingredients fuse into an incredible stew, and crockpot cooking is as simple as throwing the ingredients into the pot, plugging it in and forgetting about it. Stories abound of people who have put roasts in a crockpot and forgotten about them, opening the pots days later and finding a tender, flavorful meal still ready to eat.

Disadvantages

Some vitamins and nutrients are lost because of enzyme action during cooking. Raw beans must be boiled before cooking to remove an enzyme that can cause food poisoning. Canned beans do not require boiling, as they are boiled in the canning process.