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Episode 92

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Published on:

11th Aug 2025

WELCOME TO OUR KITCHEN: We're talking about the rise and fall of the Instant Pot.

What happened to the Instant Pot? It's come off its highs and changed dramatically. Its story is not one of overproduction or the whims of popularity. It's a more complicated story that involves investment finance and private equity.

Join us, Bruce Weinstein & Mark Scarbrough, authors of four Instant Pot books, including THE INSTANT POT BIBLE. We want to talk about what happened to this favorite kitchen appliance. Plus, a one-minute cooking tip on vinegar. And our favorites this week: head-on shrimp and pickled plums!

[01:07] Our one-minute cooking tip: Be forewarned that there's been a big change in distilled white vinegar.

[03:02] The rise and fall of the Instant Pot: its start, its wild popularity, and its move into private equity firms with all the do in their vulture capitalism.

[27:10] What’s making us happy in food this week: head-on shrimp and pickled plums!

Transcript
bruce:

Hey, I am bruce Weinstein and

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mark: this is the Podcast

Cooking with Bruce and Martin.

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And I'm Mark Scarborough, and together

with Bruce, my husband, we have written

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37 cookbooks, including the latest

cold canning, small batch counting,

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no pressure or steam canner needed.

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Make two

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bruce: or three jars of what?

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Apricot jams, strawberry

jams, sour cherry preserves.

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Ketchup, Kim cheese, chutney,

and serves Pickles, relishes.

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Mm-hmm.

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Dessert sauces.

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Hot bud Sauce.

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mark: Uh, like that and a Triple

sec recipe that will, uh, rearrange

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your life for homemade, triple sec.

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Anyway, that book is out.

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Now we'll talk a little bit about that

book in our one minute cooking tips,

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something we discovered as writing it.

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But what we really wanna talk about

in this episode of the podcast is

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the rise and fall of the Instant Pot

and what has happened to it since

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we rode that wave, at least partway.

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I wanna talk about

what's happened to this.

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Instant pot over the years and why it

has now fallen so far from its highs.

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And then we'll tell you what's

making us happy in food this week.

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So let's get started.

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bruce: Our one minute cooking tip.

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Make sure you read labels when

you buy distilled white vinegar in

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North America, because some of the

major North American distilled white

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vinegar producers have decided to

save money by diluting that vinegar.

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Not to the standard 5% acidity,

but all the way down to 4% acidity.

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That's right.

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And that's a problem.

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mark: It is 4%.

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Acidity is not preservative for food.

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So if you've been used to pickling with.

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Distilled white vinegar.

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We're talking not about

white wine vinegar.

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No, not about white slumming vinegar.

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We're talking about the old

standard distilled white vinegar.

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Mm-hmm.

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Much of it is now dropped to 4% acidity,

and you need to read those labels.

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If you are concerned about this, you do.

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Why?

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bruce: Let's say you're making

pickled cauliflower, right?

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Because you're already diluting

that vinegar with water to make

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your brine right, so you're

gonna dilute it one to one.

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It's gonna be much less acidic than

it should be if you'd used 5% vinegar.

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And then after about a week,

your cauliflower is gonna start

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to get mushy and degrade, and

the brines getting cloudy.

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Not enough vinegar in there to

preserve it for any length of time.

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mark: Right.

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So the acidity has gone down.

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So check the labels.

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You can find out the acidity rate

by reading the label carefully, and

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then you'll note you have the right

kind in hand for what you need.

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Mm-hmm.

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Okay.

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Before we get to the next part of

this podcast, the rise and fall

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of the Instant Pod, let me say, it

would be great if you could rate our

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podcast or even give it a review.

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If you can work to just simply write

a simple review like Love the podcast,

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dare I Ask, or things like that.

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That is how you can keep us

fresh in the analytics we are.

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Hoarded.

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That is the only kind of support

we can get because that is the

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kind of support we choose to get.

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So if you can do that,

that would be terrific.

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Otherwise, get ready.

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'cause we want to talk about the

rise and fall of the Instant Pot.

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bruce: I wanna start this segment off

by explaining what an Instant pot is.

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Okay.

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Because a lot of people use those

words instant pot, and we will

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get to the fact that they actually

call them ins instant pots.

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But a lot of people use those

words to mean they have an

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electric pressure cooker.

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They do.

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And it's become this just sort of

generic word for pressure cooker,

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electric pressure cookers like,

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mark: like in the South

where where I grew up.

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You call any carbonated beverage

Coke, even if it's, I don't know,

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strawberry soda you call it.

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What kind of coke do you want?

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Yeah.

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Coke is just the, the word

you use for a carbonated soda.

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bruce: But Instant Pot is a brand,

and instant pot, as we said, is

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Instant pot, not Instant pot.

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mark: I think that.

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I think that people call the Insta Pot

and you see a ton of posts online still

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for Insta Pot because of Instagram.

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That's my theory.

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Sure.

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Yeah.

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But it is officially the Instant Pot,

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bruce: and it is an electric appliance

that does have a pressure cooker function.

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Yep.

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And we will get to all of

that, but it has had quite.

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A history, hasn't it?

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Well,

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mark: yeah, and don't you think that

part of the reason that what you're

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saying is that people just refer

to any electric pressure cooker as

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an instant pot simply speaks to the

rise, the crazy rise of this gadget.

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Oh,

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bruce: it's

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mark: fantastic.

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It took over the market.

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They were fantastic.

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They were all kinds of makers

of electric pressure cookers.

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Fero, the Spanish brand,

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bruce: even Cuisinart made one for

years and all it did was Pressure cook.

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mark: Exactly.

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Yeah.

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People made other brands made electric

pressure cookers, but the instant pop

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became such a sensation that it swamped.

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Every, like I said, Coke.

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Like Kleenex.

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Yep.

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Right.

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People call any anything.

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You blow your nose with a

Kleenex and that's a brand name.

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bruce: Yeah.

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Part of why I think the Instant

Pot had that success were those

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two words in its name, instant Pot.

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Mm.

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What a brilliant.

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Brilliant marketing idea.

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You have this electric pressure

cooker, which cooks things faster

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than any other appliance you may have

except stove top pressure cooker.

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But it cooks things faster than

any electric appliance you have.

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And you're calling it Instant Pot.

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Who doesn't wanna make dinner in there?

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Instant pot.

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It's magic.

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mark: Right.

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And we'll talk about that.

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The difference between it's instant

pot and a stove top pressure cooker,

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the kind our grandmothers used.

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Mm-hmm.

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And the kind that Bruce still uses.

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Mm-hmm.

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To this day.

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We'll talk about the Differe in a minute.

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So we wanna talk about the rise, but we

also wanna talk about how this has now

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fallen and this failure is, um, large.

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Mm-hmm.

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Uh, let me say that and

affected a lot of people.

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It did.

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There are some people, and we're not

gonna name any names, but there are some

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people who made a very decent career

by hitching themselves to instant POTS

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and becoming social media influencers

through instant pots, and ended up making.

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Big box over their online

presence about the instant pop.

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Yeah.

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And those people are now high and dry.

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bruce: Yeah.

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Because once the Instant Pot started

to fade out of popularity, they

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had nothing else to hold onto.

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Yeah, that's right.

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You know, I will, I will say that Mark

and I wrote the Instant Pop Bible and

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the Instant Pop Bible Next Generation

and three other instant pop books.

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So we did ride that wave too, but we

did not make it our entire identity.

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Yeah.

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It was yet.

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Five more books in our library

of now 37 books that we've

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mark: written.

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And I think, I think I can tell you

this, and this is a bit behind the scenes

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perhaps, but you know, writers live off

both the advances on their books and then

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if their advances earn out, you sign.

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Uh, you sell enough copies that what

they paid you upfront is now made up and

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now you start making money on each copy.

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You know, you live off your royalties.

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And we certainly started getting

royalties off the Instant Pop

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Bible, but we were not as crazy

popular as some of the other books.

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And there came this moment in which, oh,

uh, all the big booksellers, independent

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booksellers, Amazon, all of them

returned thousands of those books as the.

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FAD crashed.

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Mm-hmm.

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And we were expecting a royalty check

at one point, and instead we ended

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up with a statement that had negative

numbers because so many had been

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returned, that those numbers were

pulled off our statement, and I can

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only imagine what some of those giant

people felt at that moment as hundreds,

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even hundreds of thousands of their

books were returned to the publisher.

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Mm-hmm.

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They went.

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Deep in the hole.

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bruce: And I'll say that by that

time, mark and I had already seen

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that there was less interest in it.

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And by the time that happened, we

were already writing air fryer books

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because saw the rise of the air fryer.

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So we jumped on that kind of early

on and we were really one of the

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first air fryer books out there.

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And so we did really well, but.

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Let's go back to the Instant Pot Right.

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And give you a little history about it.

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Right.

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So it was a company formed by Robert Wang.

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Um, he was Canadian.

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He's a scientist.

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He was an inventor.

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And it came out of Nortel.

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mark: Yeah.

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Uh, telecommunications Giant.

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bruce: Mm-hmm.

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And he created this.

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Appliance with two

partners in Ottawa, Canada.

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The partners left, he was joined

by two guys from Blackberry.

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mark: Again, tech guys.

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These are all very entrepreneurial,

techy kind of people

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bruce: and, and they had this

love of food and they loved to

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tinker around and so they came up

with what they called the first.

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Six in one cooker, and I think this

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mark: is really important to just think

about in terms of what happened with

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the Instant Pot, because their initial

idea for the Instant Pot was not that it

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was a pressure cooker, but that it was

a pressure cooker among other things.

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Mm-hmm.

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A rice cooker, a slow cooker yoga.

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A yogurt, a yogurt maker.

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Mm-hmm.

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All these.

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Things, and they believed that they had

come up with this six in one gadget.

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There's a, there's a long

standing myth story structure.

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I don't know in tech about the pivot

that you come up with something

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and you have to be able to, in

the middle of its process, pivot.

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Mm-hmm.

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Mm-hmm.

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And do something else with it.

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Once it starts to become a success, and

this is in fact what they went through.

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They went through a.

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Pivot because they came out with

this thing that they were like, oh,

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look at six things in one and you

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bruce: can get rid of all these

other appliances and all you

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need is this one appliance.

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Mm-hmm.

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And when they came out with

it, mark and I were writing the

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great big Pressure cooker book.

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It was 2015.

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We saw the Instant Pot out there.

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We got in touch with

Robert where we, oh my God.

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I had a long conversation with

him and we did not jump on the

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Instant Pot bandwagon for that book.

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So when we decided to write the great big

Pressure Cooker book, we knew there were

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electric pressure cookers, just to say,

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mark: we're talking 20, we're writing it.

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2014.

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It's published in 2015.

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Mm-hmm.

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bruce: We knew there were electric

pressure cookers out there, and

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we talked with our publisher and

our editor and we decided the way

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to make this a fabulous pressure.

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Cooker book is in every recipe to

give directions for how to cook

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in a stove top pressure cooker.

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And in an electric because

they cook differently.

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mark: Yeah.

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I So I, I'm sorry to interrupt you,

but that's what I want you to say.

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How, why do they cook differently?

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Mm-hmm.

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Why?

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Why do we need two different sets of

instructions for stove top and electric,

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bruce: A stove top pressure

cookers reach pressure of 15 PSI.

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And if you know anything about

science, you know that as.

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Pressure increases.

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So does temperature so they

get higher pressure and higher

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temperature inside the pot.

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Correct.

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So food will cook faster than it does in

an electric pressure cooker because an

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electric pressure cooker only reaches 12

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mark: Ps.

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Right.

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So just to be, just to be

dumbly scientific about this.

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At sea level, as you probably know,

water boils at two 12 Fahrenheit

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or a hundred Celsius, right?

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Mm-hmm.

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You know that it belt boils right there,

but if you put water under incredible

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pressure, you can actually get the

temperature of the water above two 12

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up into the 2 30, 2 40 Fahrenheit range.

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Depending, you can get it higher

than that, depending on how

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much pressure you put on it.

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So the temperature of

the water gets hotter.

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Even as it boils in normal

circumstances, the minute water hits

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two 12, it evaporates, it becomes gas.

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It stops

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bruce: getting hotter at that point.

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That's right.

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Mm-hmm.

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So,

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mark: and you know, yes,

all the liquid, all the gas.

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Mm-hmm.

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I mean, it's coming out of the liquid or

it's turning into gas from a liquid, but

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you can actually slow down that process.

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Inside of our pressure cooker.

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Okay, so when we were writing the

book again, Bruce said, we left the

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Instant Pot out and we thought it was

a bit of a gimmick, and here's why.

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So the first six in one cooker,

what they thought was the

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thing came out in about 2013.

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It came out much hotter in Canada than

it came out in the United States, but it

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was still hot even in the United States.

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And we looked at it and by the

time we were writing a year later,

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Robert Wang is an incessant.

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Inventor.

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Mm-hmm.

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And he was already tinkering with the pot.

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Mm-hmm.

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And what he was doing, he was

adding lots of buttons for meat

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and grains and all this stuff.

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All of these were for the

pressure cooking setting.

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It was blowing out into

all of these buttons.

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And to be honest with you, and this is

the honest to God truth, those buttons

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all cook at exactly the same pressure.

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Mm-hmm.

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They're put on there so that it alters the

timing slightly, but you can even change.

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The timing with any of those buttons.

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So in other words, you can cook a piece

of chicken with the meat button or the

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grain button, or whatever button you want.

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That's a pressure cooked button.

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So long as you adjust

the timing appropriately,

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bruce: and our feeling is.

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You need to follow the timings in your

recipes, not use the timings built

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into the machines and given that it

was still a six in one cooker, and

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by the time we were writing the book,

they were doing the seven in one

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cooker and the nine in one cooker.

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Right, right.

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We thought that was gonna be confusing

in our great big pressure cooker book.

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So here's the instructions for using.

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An standard electric pressure

cooker, which has pressure

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settings or the stove top.

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And then what we have to add a

third set of instructions for

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how to use the Instant Pot.

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And to be honest, we're already now

on the second generation Instant

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Pot, and each time it comes out.

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Robert Wang is changing the buttons.

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So we're gonna be giving you a book that's

outdated before it's even published.

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That's

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mark: right.

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And so for the book, just to say, for

the great big brush cooker book, we

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particularly got associated with the

Spanish match manufacturer fa, because

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they were making both stove top.

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And electric pressure cookers

and you know, they did a lot of

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publicity for us for that book.

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It was really great.

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Mm-hmm.

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We went on QVC with that book.

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It was all great and et cetera.

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Mm-hmm.

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However, that book can, in 2015.

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In 2016, the Instant Pot proved to be the

number one bestseller on Amazon Prime Day.

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And this is back in the

day when Prime Day was.

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A day instead of whatever it is

now, four months, but it was a day.

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Mm-hmm.

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And you know, you had this one day

instant, uh, Amazon Prime Day and the

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Instant Pot outsold everything else

by far, all across the Amazon site.

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bruce: So you put two and two together.

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We had a very successful, great big

pressure cooker book, and Instant

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Pot is now selling out everything

and rising Meteorically on Amazon.

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So we went to a new publisher and the new

publisher said to us, I love what you did

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with your great big pressure Cooker book.

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I would like you to do the same

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mark: from three Sellout.

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Uh, uh uh, it was three

Sellout Moments on QVC.

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Mm-hmm.

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Yes.

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He loved that.

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bruce: He said, I think you could

do the same thing for Instant Pot.

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I would like you to write just an

instant pop book and let's go for it.

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So we did.

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Now, the thing about the instant pop

bible that we wrote is we had to take

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into account all the different models.

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'cause by now yeah, there's

three or four different models.

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Yeah, yeah.

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And it starts to get a little complicated.

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Robert w.

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Even decided at one point he called

me 'cause we were talking a lot.

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He would send me samples of the Instant

bot right off the line in the Chinese

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mark: factories.

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He would go down to the lines if he

was where they were being made, or

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he would have them pulled right off

the line and he would literally throw

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it in a box and mail it to Bruce.

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And

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bruce: it was written on the,

on the side of it, in indelible

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marker that you know not for sale.

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You may not share this with anybody.

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This is off the line.

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Secrets.

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It was really crazy.

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And he,

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mark: didn't we even sign an

NDA at one point with him?

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I think so did we?

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I think you did.

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I Wouldn think you signed an NDA with him.

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Wouldn't

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bruce: did.

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And it was all about this next feature.

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So he calls me and he says, so I'm

sending you something because I am

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revolutionizing the Instant Pot.

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I said, well, the part was a revolution.

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So what now?

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And he said, well, you know how Stove

top pressure cookers can get to 15 PSI

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and the Instant pots can only get to

12 PSI as can all maybe 13, 12 or 13.

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Yes, as can all electric pressure cookers.

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He said, I'm developing a new model of

Instant Pot that offers you the ability

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to go all the way up to 15 PSI so it will

cook as hot and as fast as a stove top.

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mark: And this is a huge thing.

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And in fact, it.

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It formed how we wrote the books because

in the end we wrote the instant pop books

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so that there were recipes that could

be used, um, with most instant pots.

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And then the same recipe had to

have a separate set of timings for

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this New Max model, which if you

used Max, it had all these feet.

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Robert Wang ever.

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The tinkerer, an inventor, the the

Max model automatically shut the.

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Pressure valve.

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Mm-hmm.

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You didn't have to manually do

anything with it, and it automatically

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opened it up and as Bruce says, it

came up to the full 15 PSI that a

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stove top pressure cooker will do.

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By the way, just to say none of

this, uh, comes up to the level

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that pressure canners come up to.

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No.

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That's a whole nother, that's

a, a whole different thing.

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These are pressure cookers.

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Well,

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:

bruce: as a chef, I

fell in love with that.

418

:

That 15 PSI thing that the Max could do.

419

:

Right.

420

:

And that's the, I was

so excited about that.

421

:

But what we didn't take into consideration

was, one, the Max machine was much

422

:

more expensive than the other.

423

:

So it was never going to sell

Quite as well or become as popular.

424

:

mark: Correct.

425

:

bruce: And two.

426

:

People who don't have a max

machine, were just confused by

427

:

those instructions in our recipes.

428

:

Well, yeah.

429

:

They were like, well, what's Max?

430

:

I don't know even what

you're talking about.

431

:

mark: And here's the thing, Robert

kept it reinventing it, and this is not

432

:

a fault and why it failed, actually.

433

:

Mm-hmm.

434

:

But Robert kept reinventing it.

435

:

And you know, how many

instant pots do you need?

436

:

I know people did end up with six, eight.

437

:

I would see social media posts

with people who had a rack.

438

:

Of instant pots in their home,

and they were so happy that their

439

:

spouse built them this rack for the

pots and all that kind of stuff.

440

:

And they had many different models,

but most people did not need continued

441

:

updates of this machine itself.

442

:

So this was, you know, all happening.

443

:

It was still really hot and as it

peaked and as it hit the top of its

444

:

hotness in 2019, instant, instant.

445

:

Brands, the Instant Pod company was sold

to Chore Brands, and you may know Corll.

446

:

Dinnerware.

447

:

Yep.

448

:

Okay, so Carell Brands was one piece of a

larger portfolio owned by an investment.

449

:

Banker, private equity firm,

Carell Capital, they owned Corning.

450

:

They own Pyrex, and now they

own the instant brands and the,

451

:

they bought it for Billions.

452

:

Billions, I think they billion.

453

:

They spent a fortune, which is

exactly as an entrepreneur, what

454

:

you want to happen to product.

455

:

He

456

:

bruce: did a brilliant, brilliant move.

457

:

He built a company from scratch.

458

:

It became super popular.

459

:

He kept making new and exciting

models that people kept buying.

460

:

And after he'd made so

much money making this.

461

:

This Instant Pod, he sold

the company for billions.

462

:

So

463

:

mark: good for him.

464

:

Lemme say The Instant Pod

and the Instant Brands.

465

:

They made this huge success

through social media.

466

:

They did almost no

traditional advertising.

467

:

They literally became a viral

phenomenon and he wrote it.

468

:

Out until he could sell it for as much

as one could imagine to Carell Brands,

469

:

which as I say, was owned by Carell

Capital, and if you know anything

470

:

about private equity firms and how they

work, they took this brand, the Instant

471

:

brand, and they loaded it with debt.

472

:

They borrowed a ton of money

against the brand name.

473

:

The brand could never pay back all

that money, and so they were then

474

:

able to put it into bankruptcy.

475

:

That is kind of the s.

476

:

Standard operating procedure of private

equity firms to find a popular brand.

477

:

Just pull as much debt onto

it as you can possibly do it.

478

:

No, it will never make up this debt.

479

:

Mm-hmm.

480

:

Very sad.

481

:

And then pull it into bankruptcy.

482

:

And that cash that you

borrowed on it is now yours.

483

:

That happened to it.

484

:

Over time, the company started

to degrade and then came the

485

:

big degrade, which was in 2023.

486

:

bruce: Lemme say that online, if

you watched what was happening, the

487

:

people who were instant potheads,

who had all those things, right, they

488

:

called themselves potheads, right?

489

:

They watched instant brands

create many more appliances.

490

:

Even the many varieties of instant

pots, they did air fryers, right?

491

:

Uh, they did blenders, rotisserie,

492

:

mark: didn't they do a

rotisserie thing for one?

493

:

There was rot,

494

:

bruce: there was a rotisserie built

into some of their air fryers.

495

:

That's right.

496

:

And so what people online were saying,

oh, well they're going bankrupt

497

:

because they expanded too fast.

498

:

They made too many kinds of products.

499

:

And what Mark and I kept

saying to ourselves is.

500

:

No.

501

:

They made all these things, which

is what made them a success and

502

:

made them attractive to Right.

503

:

Corral brands.

504

:

Correct.

505

:

And Carell said, oh, we could scrape

all that lovely money out of there

506

:

and become rich ourselves, which

507

:

mark: is what they did.

508

:

That's exactly what they did.

509

:

And so they put it into bankruptcy

in:

510

:

acquired by Center Lane.

511

:

Partners, another private equity firm.

512

:

They actually just bought the

Appliance division of Instant Brands.

513

:

And now I'm gonna tell you something,

and this is a little political, but I

514

:

don't want any political commentary here.

515

:

I'm just gonna tell you

the facts of what happened.

516

:

Okay.

517

:

So Center Lane Partners owned a

portfolio of various products.

518

:

They owned Pyrex, they

owned the old glass.

519

:

Company from Pennsylvania, anchor Hawking.

520

:

They owned Linux.

521

:

You made Linux from China and

Flatware and that kind of stuff.

522

:

Um, now they own the Instant

Brands because Center Lane

523

:

Partners owned both Pyrex and.

524

:

Anchor Hawking Center Lane Partners

came under the eye of the US

525

:

Antitrust Department and they

started to be investigated for

526

:

antitrust violations, not having

anything to do with the Instant Pot.

527

:

Mm-hmm.

528

:

With having everything to do

with the connection between

529

:

Pyrex and Anchor Hawking.

530

:

I believe they even put the factory

for Anchor Hawking out of business.

531

:

They did.

532

:

They did Pennsylvania.

533

:

So here's the.

534

:

Brand did.

535

:

Here's what the firm, the private

equity firm did, and again, I

536

:

don't want to be political here.

537

:

I just wanna tell you the facts.

538

:

What the firm did is it began

bringing out Linux, China, Linux,

539

:

flatware, and Instant Pots, as well

as even some glass square through

540

:

Anchor Hawking, all with the Trump.

541

:

Brand on them.

542

:

They did this so that they could

ease their way out of regulation.

543

:

Essentially this was the new kind of

lobbying, which is part flattery, that

544

:

in other words, we will put out Trump

bla branded appliances and this will

545

:

help ease us back out of regulation.

546

:

Again, I don't wanna get

political right in the

547

:

bruce: hopes.

548

:

He gives us a free pass.

549

:

mark: That's right.

550

:

But whatever you think about this move

politically, and again, I don't care,

551

:

but whatever you think about it, this

further damaged the instant brand, right?

552

:

Because politics are so divisive

in the United States that people

553

:

discovered that Instant Brands was

putting out a Trump branded Instant

554

:

Pot, and they all got away from it.

555

:

Whole, um, groups online and

fire sales of Instant Pots, and I

556

:

gotta get rid of my Instant Pot.

557

:

'cause now they're with Trump.

558

:

They, they're not really with Trump.

559

:

They're not really with Trump.

560

:

It's this weird backdoor lobbying campaign

in order to get the US Justice Department

561

:

off their tails for antitrust violations.

562

:

bruce: And that was really the.

563

:

Final decline of the Instapot.

564

:

It, it has been still.

565

:

They're still out there.

566

:

People still have 'em.

567

:

We still have them.

568

:

I love the ones I have.

569

:

mark: And let's say that the Trump

branded products was particularly

570

:

devastating to the original

audience of the INS Instant Pod.

571

:

Mm-hmm.

572

:

The Canadian audience, which the sales

just fell off the hook at that point.

573

:

bruce: So at the height.

574

:

Instant pot.

575

:

And when we were writing all

the books, I probably had about

576

:

25 instant pots in the house.

577

:

You did?

578

:

You did.

579

:

And I have, of course, given so

many away and kept my favorite.

580

:

So what I have kept is a three quart

instant pot because it's the perfect

581

:

size for just like making potatoes

for mashed potatoes from Mark and me,

582

:

um, for making just a small amount of

broth if I have, you know, a bunch of

583

:

chicken wings and a neck and a few legs.

584

:

I got rid of all of my six quarts,

which was the standard one, but I

585

:

kept an eight quart and a 10 quart.

586

:

The giant ones.

587

:

The giant ones, the eight quart

is great 'cause you could make,

588

:

you know so much, use so much

in it as once and the 10 quart.

589

:

Here's what I love about the 10 quart.

590

:

What I loved about the Insta

bot in general was pasta.

591

:

You could cook pasta,

spaghetti, zdi, rigatoni.

592

:

In your sauce, right?

593

:

You build a sauce, you put the

pasta in, you put it on, and

594

:

five minutes later it's done.

595

:

In the 10 court, you could cook

spaghetti without breaking it.

596

:

To fit the pot, it fit the

whole box of spaghetti.

597

:

And

598

:

mark: I will say that, uh, we still have

these pots and I, uh, and as you know, the

599

:

writer in the pair of us, but I use them.

600

:

Exclusively as slow cookers at this point.

601

:

I used the slow cooker function

to make chili after Bruce's

602

:

concert, stuff like that.

603

:

I rarely ever use the pressure

cooker setting of them.

604

:

So that's the whole story, how this thing

became a phenomenon through social media.

605

:

People built careers off of it.

606

:

Mm-hmm.

607

:

As.

608

:

Influencers.

609

:

Then the things started to fall apart.

610

:

Not because it became too popular, not

because they began innovating too much,

611

:

but because they innovated it until they

were at the peak of their popularity.

612

:

It got sold and then it got sold.

613

:

Again, and then there came this political

problem and it really now has collapsed.

614

:

As I say, I've seen actually parties

online with people selling on Facebook

615

:

marketplace, their instant pots

for a dollar to get rid of them.

616

:

This is all part of the political

polarization in the United States.

617

:

Ca Canada's distrust of the United States.

618

:

Yeah.

619

:

At this moment it's all part of what's

happening around it, and the pot is

620

:

just continuing to tank underneath us.

621

:

So.

622

:

That's the rise and fall of the Insat.

623

:

You wanna add anything?

624

:

bruce: Yeah, that I am not selling mine.

625

:

I don't care what's

happened to the company.

626

:

I love my three Insta Bots.

627

:

They are mine and no one can have

628

:

mark: them.

629

:

Okay.

630

:

So there you go.

631

:

That's the rise and fall

of the In Instant Bot.

632

:

So before we get to the final segment of

this podcast, let me say that we have, uh,

633

:

great social media group available to you.

634

:

In fact, we have a TikTok

channel named Cooking with.

635

:

Bruce and Mark just the same name as

his podcast, and we've recently had

636

:

some videos actually go viral on TikTok.

637

:

Mm-hmm.

638

:

You might wanna check us out on TikTok,

uh, cooking with Bruce and Mark.

639

:

Were making food for each other.

640

:

I think we're, uh, pickling

cherry tomatoes right now and

641

:

making a really spicy carrot.

642

:

Mm-hmm.

643

:

What?

644

:

Conant Jam?

645

:

Mm-hmm.

646

:

Carrot Jam.

647

:

But it's more like a condiment for soft.

648

:

Cheese and for hamburgers,

that kind of thing.

649

:

Uh, those videos are actually

going viral right now, and

650

:

we're kind of proud of that.

651

:

So check us out on TikTok, uh,

cooking, Bruce and Mark, as well as of

652

:

course, subscribing to this podcast.

653

:

Okay.

654

:

As is traditional, the final segment,

what's making us happy in food this week?

655

:

bruce: Head on shrimp.

656

:

Skewered and grilled

marinated Vietnamese style.

657

:

We had a dinner party last night.

658

:

Mm-hmm.

659

:

It was our friend's grandson's.

660

:

14th birthday we did.

661

:

And we said we would have the whole family

over for dinner 'cause he loves fish.

662

:

And we did a big what?

663

:

mark: Nine of them came right?

664

:

Well the grandkids Two different.

665

:

Two different.

666

:

Our friends, their kids, two

couples that are their kids.

667

:

Plus three grandkids.

668

:

Mm-hmm.

669

:

bruce: Including the

birthday boy who wanted fish.

670

:

So I did a home mixed fish

grill, including head on

671

:

shrimp, which I got at Costco.

672

:

These were like, U nines means fewer than

nine shrimp per pound, so they were giant.

673

:

I skewered them.

674

:

I marinated them in fish sauce and curry

paste and lime juice and brown sugar.

675

:

They were so yummy.

676

:

So that made me happy.

677

:

mark: It was really good.

678

:

Uh, I think what's made me happy in

food this week are spiced pickled plums.

679

:

And if you go out to

Melissa's, produce the organic.

680

:

Produce, uh, seller.

681

:

If you go down to their site on

YouTube, you'll see Bruce and

682

:

I did, uh, an event for them.

683

:

We did a cooking event for them

that went on YouTube live and

684

:

now it's just living on YouTube.

685

:

So Melissa's produce and we

make these spiced pickled plums

686

:

from cold canning, our latest

book, and they are so delicious.

687

:

If you grew up in the south, like me,

you may know about spiced peaches.

688

:

These plums are fantastic.

689

:

Mm-hmm.

690

:

And in fact, people ate them

last night with all this.

691

:

Fish off the grill.

692

:

I'm not sure they exactly go with

fish, but they were simply tasty.

693

:

They, with everything.

694

:

One person at the table claimed he was

fighting not to go back for a second plum.

695

:

So there you go.

696

:

There was a lot of food on the table.

697

:

So there you go.

698

:

So that's the podcast for this week.

699

:

Thanks for joining us.

700

:

Thanks for being a part of this

journey and thanks for being, um,

701

:

with us every step of this way.

702

:

bruce: And if you're paying

attention to social media, you know,

703

:

there's a lot of AI out there and

a lot of videos that are totally.

704

:

Made up.

705

:

They're bots.

706

:

They're not real.

707

:

But when you go to watch Bruce and

Mark on cooking with Bruce and Mark on

708

:

our TikTok channel, on our Instagram

channel, on YouTube, on our Facebook

709

:

channel, you are always going to get us.

710

:

You are never gonna get ai.

711

:

That is our promise to you here

on 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

Profile picture for Mark Scarbrough

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!