A pressure cooker is a sealed cooking vessel that uses high-pressure steam to cook food faster than conventional boiling. The French physicist Denis Papin built the prototype, which he called the steam digester, in 1679 and presented it to the Royal Society of London in 1681. The device can cook food in roughly a quarter to a half the time of conventional boiling while using less energy, and it is especially useful at high altitude, where lower atmospheric pressure otherwise makes ordinary boiling inadequate for proper cooking; commercial development of the pressure cooker followed much later, in Stuttgart, Germany in 1864 and under a Spanish patent in 1918.
Facts
SignificancePapin demonstrated the steam digester to the Royal Society of London in 1681, a presentation that helped establish pressurized steam cooking as a subject of serious scientific interest rather than a curiosity. 1 Connections
Invented By
Source Pressure Cooker (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
Sources
1. Pressure Cooker (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia contributors, Wikimedia FoundationHistory section
In 1681 Papin presented his invention to the Royal Society of London as a scientific study; he was later elected as a member.
Invented By: Denis Papin, Lead section
The prototype of the modern pressure cooker was the steam digester invented in the seventeenth century by the physicist Denis Papin.
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