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Episode 53

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Published on:

23rd Sep 2024

WELCOME TO OUR KITCHEN: We're talking about what's happened with the slow cooker!

If you're as old as we are, you grew up with a slow cooker on the counter during the day as dinner got made over the long haul. Slow cookers: a history, not just the ways they've come in and out of style, but what's happened mechanically to the machines over the years.

We're Bruce Weinstein & Mark Scarbrough. We've written over three dozen cookbooks, including THE GREAT AMERICAN SLOW COOKER BOOK, which was a giant hit on QVC. If you'd like to check out that book, click this link.

We're talking about slow cookers: their history, their ins and outs, and the changes that have happened to them over the years.

[00:51] Our one-minute cooking tip: Save the olive oil from tins of sardines and anchovies for the base of a stew.

[02:22] How did the slow cooker come about? (Invented by Western Electric's first Jewish engineer.) How did they come to be called "crock pots"? And what's happened to them over the years, including the mechanical changes to them nowadays?

[18:16] What’s making us happy in food this week: lamb kofta and lemon marmalade.

Transcript
Speaker:

Hey, I'm Bruce Weinstein and this

is the podcast cooking with Bruce

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and Mark and I'm Mark Skrubber and

together with Bruce my husband We

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have written three dozen cookbooks.

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We are in the process of the

editorial process of the Three

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dozen and first cookbook.

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It's sitting on my desk in a million

pieces from the copy editor and

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in this show We're not going to

be talking about any of our books.

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Although maybe we'll tell

you about that in a minute We

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got a one minute cooking tip.

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We're going to talk about slow cookers.

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How they got started.

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Where'd they come from?

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It's kind of an interesting story

where they came from and where they

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go and what happened to them in

the modern age and they've Changed

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dramatically in really fundamental ways.

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Not just because Bells and whistles.

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So we want to talk about that

and we'll tell you what's making

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us happy in food this week.

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So let's get started.

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Our one minute cooking tips.

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Save the oil from tins of anchovies

and sardines and even tuna, but it

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has to be packed in good olive oil.

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Make sure it says olive oil or

even extra virgin olive oil.

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Then you can add some chopped

fresh herbs, even a clove of garlic

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to this oil and it's up to you.

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Powerhouse umami blast for

sauces and salad dressings.

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Yeah, if you put this oil at the

bottom, I know it's going to seem

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counterintuitive, but with garlic at the

bottom of a beef stew, and not all of

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it, like, you know, some of it out of

the ten with garlic, I'm telling you,

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your beef stew won't know what hit it.

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And no, it's not going to taste fishy.

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No, it's not.

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No, it's going to melt into it.

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And you're going to get this really salty,

Big, savory hit underneath the beef stew.

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That's called umami, a word Mark hates.

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Yeah, I don't like it.

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It's become a buzzword.

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Okay, so look at that.

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We finished a one minute

cooking tip in under a minute.

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We're going to move on to questions

about slow cookers, its history,

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and what's happened to them.

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Before we do that, let me say

that we do have a newsletter.

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It comes out, I don't know, two times a

month, once a month, something like that.

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You can sign up for it on our

website, cookingwithbruceandmark.

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com or Bruce and mark.

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com.

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I don't capture your email or

your name, nor do I allow the

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provider MailChimp to capture them,

nor do I allow them to sell it.

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So you can always unsubscribe at any time.

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If you would like to get our newsletter,

which is sometimes connected to this

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podcast and sometimes completely

disconnected and has recipes on its own.

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All right.

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Next, what has ever happened

to the slow cooker and where

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did the slow cooker come from?

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It's also called a crockpot.

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Oh no, that's the brand name, crack pot.

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It's a crockpot, a crack pot.

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And it was so successful

that the brand name crockpot.

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It became what everybody called the

slow cooker countertop appliance.

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Like Kleenex.

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It's like Instant Pot.

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If you have an electric pressure cooker,

no matter what brand it is, you're

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probably calling it an Instant Pot.

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Yeah, I am amazed that people say

all the time, here's my, I don't

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know, fig or, you instant pot.

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I'm like, well, no, that's your

fake or electric pressure cooker.

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But the word has just become so

ubiquitous for the countertop electric

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pressure cookers, like Kleenex for the

stuff you pull out of a box and blow

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your nose with, which is a brand name.

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And it's the same with crockpot.

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So let's talk about this for a minute

because actually an interesting history.

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The slow cooker, as we know, it

was invented by Irving Nachason and

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um, Nachason was an immigrant to

the United States and was Western

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Electric's first Jewish engineer.

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Hey, let's hear it for Jewish engineers.

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That's who you are.

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What he patented in 1940,

he called the Naxon Beanery.

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Because he changed his name

from Nachason to Nachason.

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When he came to the United States

to Naxa to emphasize his name.

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And he also called it the beanery because

he thought it was best to cook beans.

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And that's kind of what he did.

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And so tell us about where this came from.

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So this came from his family.

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I mean, he was told these

stories and it made him think.

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So in the late 19th century, in

a Jewish neighborhood in the city

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of Vilnius, Lithuania, Once known

as the Jerusalem of the North.

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On Shabbat, folks would bring

crocks of food, probably beans,

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to the local bakery and they would

place them in the ovens, which were

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still hot from the week's baking.

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And they'd Uh, we're gonna stop.

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For all the Christians in the

audience, there can be no baking in

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a Jewish kosher bakery on Shabbat.

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No cooking.

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You can't cook at home.

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On the Sabbath.

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You can't cook in the bakery, but

those ovens were still hot when they

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stopped working on Friday evening.

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Right.

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So they'd put their food in there.

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They'd stay overnight in those hot

but cooling ovens, and by the next

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day, everything was cooked slowly.

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So we can presume there were

beans in that since it was the

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Naxon beanery that he made.

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It's really funny that The history

of this slow cooker has a religious

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foundation in its inception.

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Yeah, it has a kashrut foundation and

I would say that many people who keep

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kosher still use slow cookers because they

can set them to go before sundown on the

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sabbath and then either have something

the next day left over, they can't

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turn it off if they're super religious.

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But they can set it so

it keeps warm, right?

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Again.

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After that.

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I think it's probably a very

useful tool if you keep kosher.

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So, in 1970, this Irving Naxon sold

his company and his appliance, the

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Naxon Beanery, to Rival, the great

Rival company, you know, rival that

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made so many countertop appliances

in the sixties and seventies.

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He sold it to them and they

changed the name to the Crockpot.

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It's rival who, who originally called

it the Crockpot and unveiled it at

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a 1971 houseware show in Chicago.

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And yep, there it was in harvest gold and.

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Avocado green.

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And it exploded, right?

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I mean, the sales went through the roof.

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Ninety three million bucks in just

four years back in the early 70s.

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Or Irving Naxon.

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I feel sorry for Irving Naxon.

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I mean, he doesn't have the wherewithal

that Rival did to turn this product

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into almost a household tool.

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I'm sure if Rival bought it, he

was selling well, but not at the

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levels it eventually sold at.

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And I bet he didn't keep a cut.

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That would have been really nice.

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Well, no, I bet he didn't.

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He was an engineer.

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So he probably didn't even

think about these things.

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What is it?

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How does this thing work to begin with?

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So you have this outer casing, this,

this machine thing that heats up, right?

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And it heats up an inner container.

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And that inner container can be

crockery or it could be metal and it

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can be removable or not removable.

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And that crockery inner container

is where they got the name crockery.

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Because originally it was only

a crockery inner container.

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And there's a lid, and it's not a tight

fitting lid, but it sits on heavily

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enough so no steam escapes because

you don't get a reduction of steam.

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when you cook in a slow cooker.

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So, um, these original slow cookers that

came out from Arrival, and we're going

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to talk about this in a minute, but

I'm going to divert to something else,

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but I just want to say, they cooked at

very, very low temperatures, and this

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was before USDA food safety regulations

became what they are today, and that

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will play out in what we're about to say.

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But let me just say one

thing before we get to that.

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A lot of people, of course, set their

slow cooker at and go off to work or

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set their slow cooker and go to bed.

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I guess that's not quite so

bad, but they go off to work.

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Well, that's what it's designed for.

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There is not one single fire

department in North America, in

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Canada, at least Canada and the United

States, that recommends doing so.

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You are leaving a hot cooking appliance

on your counter without supervision.

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Jim Long, who was the director of the

fire department, public information

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for the New York Fire Department.

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Um, he was, has been

interviewed and he says that

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must be attended to.

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In fact, his quote is, someone should

always have eyes on the appliance.

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Yes.

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But you can't do that if you leave

for work, so I mean, when I was a

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kid, I definitely remember my mother

putting clothes in the dryer, and

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then we left to go out to dinner, we

left to go to church, whatever we did,

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and the clothes were in the dryer.

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These days, of course, I know too

much about dryer lint and dryer fires,

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and I would never have the dryer

running without one of us at home.

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It's just not going to happen.

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And we keep a fire extinguisher

in the laundry room.

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Yeah, which, by the way, you

should keep in your kitchen.

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But, uh, you should just know that no

one And I mean, no one who works in fire

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safety believes that you should leave

the house with a going crockpot or a go

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or growing slow cooker on your counter.

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Now, according to them, though,

most of these fires and the

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problems come from bad cords.

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Cords are in bad shape.

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So he does say, check your cords

regularly, make sure that they are

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solid, that the connections are tight and

follow the manufacturer's instructions.

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And also, outlets go wonky at homes

every time they start to open.

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Arc.

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Uh, I have an outlet in my office that

is, uh, in need of some service because,

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uh, a space heater kind of melted.

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Blew it out.

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Melted, yeah.

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Melted the top.

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Plug in it.

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Yeah.

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So outlets go out over time.

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Things.

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I hope no one from our insurance company

heard that . Hope not Either things happen

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over time and you shouldn't leave it.

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Okay, so now I'm going to go back and

tell you about originary slow cookers and

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what, originary, and what Naxon had to

do with his beanery and how rival did it.

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In the early days, there

were not sear settings.

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They were not keep warm settings.

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There was just high and low.

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And essentially, this isn't completely

true, but essentially low was 120

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degrees Fahrenheit and high was

about 135, even up to 140 Fahrenheit.

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Basically, it's sous vide levels.

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Yes, and you should just know

that the USDA now has, of course,

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come on the scene and has enforced

safety standards for food.

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And if you don't know this,

I'm here to tell you this.

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The bad zone for food is

between 40 degrees Fahrenheit

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and 140 degrees Fahrenheit.

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It's in that zone between 40 and 140

Fahrenheit that bad bugs can grow.

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So the old Slow cookers were

essentially Petri dishes.

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Oh, yum.

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Well, they were.

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They were.

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That's what they were.

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They were.

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I'm not saying that we, uh, my mom used

one, we had a crock pot, it, nobody that

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I know of got sick because of it, but

they do violate modern safety standards.

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And I think, uh, Possibly that

also came out of the whole idea

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that it grew out of beans, right?

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If he was cooking beans in it, you

didn't need to worry about safety so

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much because beans are not like chicken.

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And modern slow cookers and, uh,

Bruce will talk about this in a

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minute, modern slow cookers cook

much hotter than the old ones do.

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And you can know this just by

looking at slow cooker recipes.

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If you pull up a slow cooker recipe that

your mom had, Or that comes, let's say

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you find one even on the internet that

comes from the seventies or eighties.

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You're going to see that you put

the chuck roast in and you set

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it on high, high, even you set

it on high for 10 to 12 hours.

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If you look at the same recipe

these days, it's going to say, set

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it on low for four to six hours.

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We wrote a slow cooker book called

the great American slow cooker book.

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And in that book, we got.

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Interesting comments from people who

are reading it because they say, wait

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a second, you know, you, you call

for chicken thighs to go in on low

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for six hours or high for two, right?

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And it's like, well, I

could do that on my stove.

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And the problem is, yeah, modern

slow cookers cook really hot on high.

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They can go anywhere from 200

to 300, depending on your brand.

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That's like putting it on a stove.

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Okay, so I, I mark of the team.

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I like slow cookers

and I use slow cookers.

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And I use slow cookers to make chili for

Bruce's concerts for the parties after

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Bruce's concerts for this Baro group.

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I use slow cookers all the time.

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When he's outta town, I'll make myself

some kind of stew in a slow cooker.

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I love them.

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But here's the thing.

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It's true, it is like the stove,

the difference is when something's

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on the stove, no matter where I

adjust the burner, even super low,

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I still have to mess with it, I

have to open the pot and stir it.

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While I should keep an eye on a

slow cooker, as in walk through

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the kitchen every once in a while,

make sure everything's okay,

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I don't have to do anything.

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It's just going in there

and it's doing its thing.

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And because it's crockery and

not metal, it's doing it right.

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rather slowly and insulatedly, but

modern slow cookers cook a lot hotter.

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They do.

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And it's interesting.

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Some of them now come with metal inserts.

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So Mark's thing that they cook

slower and crock is even more

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in trouble now because you buy a

modern one with metal and that's,

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and those are designed to lift out.

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You could actually put it on your

stove to heat it up to Brown your

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meat and then you put it back in.

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Yes.

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So they really are becoming almost.

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I would call them even

like electric Dutch ovens.

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On slow, you're going to get

anywhere between 160 and 200.

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On average.

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On average.

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There are outliers.

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And on high, some of them go up

to 300, but most are over 200, And

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in fact, you know, we also wrote.

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And by the way, we're

talking Fahrenheit here.

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So we're not speaking in centigrade

or Celsius, but we're talking

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about Fahrenheit, and so we are

way, even at 160, we're not yet

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above the boiling point of water.

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But once we hit those upper numbers,

like 260, 280, 300, we're way

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above the boiling point of water.

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But there's ways to get

around these higher numbers.

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When you're shopping for a Crock Pot,

you have to be careful and look at

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the manufacturer's websites and the

owner's manuals and only buy one that

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tells you what the temperatures are.

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And that's it.

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So for instance, I bought a

really cool little Cuisinart

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one that has four settings.

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And the four settings are high,

which is at 212, which is okay.

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I mean, it's a little higher

than I like, but it's fine.

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Low is at 200.

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Now, that I would consider high.

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So I kind of use that

one when I want high.

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It has a simmer setting at 185,

which is really useful if you want

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to let things go for a few hours.

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And here's the thing I love.

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It has a warm setting at 165.

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They tell you don't cook at that

setting, but sometimes I like to

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put our overnight oatmeal in at 165.

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It doesn't burn.

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It's beautiful.

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When I make steel cutters, so my, just,

if you want to know, my recipe is five

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to one, so in volume, so five, cups

of, or let's say I use a cup, five cups

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of water to one cup of steel cutouts.

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But whatever the volume is, I don't care.

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You use an iced tea glass.

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It's five to one in terms

of volume for steel cutouts.

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And that can last me

about eight, nine hours.

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I find if we go ten hours, like I

put it on early and we get up late,

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it's really to Crunchy at the edges.

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I mean, it started to burn and let me

just say the old crockpots when they first

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developed the keep warm setting The keep

warm setting was really low I mean 140

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which is food safety even lower than that.

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I really original ones.

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They were way low They

were like body temperature.

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So yeah, that is a petri dish.

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Yeah, it's a total petri dish So, you

know I mean This is part of the reason

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people kind of icked out about slow

cookers in the late 80s and early 90s

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because they didn't I did have some food

safety concerns associated with them.

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Modern ones don't, but then

you have to adapt the recipes.

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So you cannot use your ancient slow

cooker recipes with modern slow cookers.

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You need our book, The Great

American Slow Cooker Book.

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Sure, we have a book on slow

cookers, which every recipe is

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sized for every size of slow cooker.

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slow cooker, but yes, we have that book,

but as well as that book, uh, there's

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just ways that you have to adapt.

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As Bruce says, you know, I want chilies.

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Gosh, when I make chili in the slow

cooker for his concerts, I put it on

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high for two hours and it's way done.

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Hey, how do you spell chili?

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Oh, no, no.

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We're not going to have that discussion.

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Bruce is making reference to the fact

that the copy editor and I were in a

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giant discussion about how to spell chili.

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C H I L I.

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I don't mean the country.

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I mean the fruit, like

jalapenos and poblanos.

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And it's a whole thing.

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The old way to spell it is C H I L E,

like the country and the modern way that

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Merriam Webster accepts is C H I L I.

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Yay for Merriam, that's the way I do it.

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Okay, well, we've gone with the old way

in the book, so, because I'm following

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the copy editor's lead, but it was

a whole discussion about chilies.

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Okay, that's nothing to do with slow

cookers, except, oh, I should tell you,

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since we're stopped here on chilies.

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And about chilies, yeah.

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I just tell you, if you

don't know this, slow cookers

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So if you think that you've got it

spiced up with cayenne or jalapenos

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or pickled jalapeno rings or

whatever it is, you probably don't.

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You're going to either have to add more at

the end or if you don't mind heat, you can

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do what I do, which is just always double

the amount of any spicy ingredients.

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Yep, a slow And I also

find it destroys ginger.

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Just destroys it.

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Anything that has any kind of

a heat kick to it, it just, it

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disintegrates those molecules and

you end up having to add more.

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Yeah, it's, it's, it's a thing.

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So again, cayenne, chili powder,

chilies themselves, all those things.

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You might want to up your amounts or

you're going to have to add more or add

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sriracha at the end if you want it spicy.

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Okay.

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That's our whole rundown of the

slow cooker from Lithuanian.

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Kosher bakeries up to the modern high

temperature of modern slow cookers.

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That's everything we could

say right now about it.

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Before we get to the final segment

of this podcast, let me say that it

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would be great if you could check out

our Facebook group, cooking person,

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Mark, we would love to see you there.

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This episode will be posted there and

you can continue to tell us what's

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making you happy in food this week.

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Other than that, let's tell

you what's making us happy.

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Happy in food this week.

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Lamb kofta.

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Oh, we went to dinner at a friend's last

night and he made us lamb kofta, ground

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spiced Middle Eastern spice meatballs.

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They're slightly elongated.

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He skewered them on Rosemary and then

roasted them and they were delicious.

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They were.

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I served him with a yogurt.

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So he can like sauce.

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And, uh, it was quite delicious.

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It's also lovely to be

cooked for by other people.

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Yes, it is.

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So that was a really nice benefit.

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And they had just returned,

our friends, from Cape Cod.

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And so they also brought a toast.

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ton of smoked fish that we ate

before dinner that they'd found

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at a smokery, I guess, in Chatham

or somewhere near Chatham.

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So it was a really nice

meal all the way around.

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:

Okay, well, what's making me happy in

food this week has probably made me

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happy before, and it's lemon marmalade.

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And Bruce always makes it.

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lemon marmalade, not just an orange,

he makes a lot of orange marmalade,

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but he makes lemon and the lemon is so

absurdly sour and delicious that I had it.

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I'm going to tell you that before we

recorded this episode, I had it on a

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piece of toast and I had scrambled eggs

and toast and lemon marmalade for my

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lunch and it was really quite delicious.

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I love lemon marmalade more

than I can possibly say.

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I guess if you ask me what kind of

sweet I want, I'll, I'll pick lemon

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before I pick Chocolate every time.

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It's just my thing.

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I agree.

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Sour.

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:

Yeah.

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I love lemon pies, lemon

cakes, all that kind of stuff.

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Okay.

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That's the podcast for this week.

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Thanks for joining us.

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Thanks for being with us.

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We appreciate that you've chosen

to spend time with us and please

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subscribe to this podcast.

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So you don't miss a single episode.

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If you've got a crock pot story,

do you have an old crock pot?

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Are you still using it?

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Do you like the new ones?

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Go to our Facebook group,

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tell us your crock pot story.

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Pot Stories.

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We want to know what is going

on in your kitchen here on

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Cooking with Bruce and Mark.

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About the Podcast

Cooking with Bruce and Mark
Fantastic recipes, culinary science, a little judgment, hysterical banter, love and laughs--you know, life.
Join us, Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough, for weekly episodes all about food, cooking, recipes, and maybe a little marital strife on air. After writing thirty-six cookbooks, we've got countless opinions and ideas on ingredients, recipes, the nature of the cookbook-writing business, and much more. If you've got a passion for food, we also hope to up your game once and a while and to make you laugh most of the time. Come along for the ride! There's plenty of room!

About your host

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Mark Scarbrough

Former lit professor, current cookbook writer, creator of two podcasts, writer of thirty-five (and counting) cookbooks, author of one memoir (coming soon!), married to a chef (my cookbook co-writer, Bruce Weinstein), and with him, the owner of two collies, all in a very rural spot in New England. My life's full and I'm up for more challenges!