I’m reading Modernist Cuisine right now (I’ve just started Volume 4). And the writers are huge fans of pressure cookers. They love them almost as much as they love sous vide cooking. And all these instructions and recipes have given me the desire to purchase one. But in the wake of the Boston bombings, I suspect that now is not the time for a shadowy loner to buy one.
There is another thread about this, but you shouldn’t worry. So far, your God given right to own a pressure cooker has not been infringed. I have a couple for sale if you have some gold coin.
I imagine that it’ll be treated like any other product with a normal use that can be subverted for nefarious purposes (like fertilizer) - they might keep track of who’s buying them; if you buy one you’re okay, if you buy 20 the FBI might show up and ask a few questions.
Probably poor taste to mention this, but when I was a little kid my mom had a pressure cooker that she used quite often.
However, some neighbor lady must have used hers incorrectly and the thing blew up, injuring her somewhat and causing havoc in her kitchen.
My mother tossed hers out into the garbage the next day and that has made me paranoid about ever using one since.
They’re easy and safe to use if you pay attention to them while they’re warming up; the newer ones are much safer than the ones used in the 1960s and 1970s. (My mom blew one up as well, and never used one throughout my childhood.) I also wouldn’t worry about being seen as suspicious for buying a pressure cooker, but make sure that you get a decent one if you’re going to be using it frequently.
My grandmother also blew up a pressure cooker. I honestly haven’t seen many people use pressure cookers in their homes for many years. It was a staple for my mom and grandmother to use a pressure cooker probably more than once a week. My grandmother blew the one up but was just a little more careful after that, she didn’t stop using them because of it.
My mother had a pressure cooker. When she let the pressure off, the cat used to think it was the flea spray and run and hide.
My sister has one that belonged to my mother and her grandmother before her that was used as late as the early '80s but looks like a prop from a steampunk party with the dials- like thisexcept the gauge is brass and there are locks that look like a mini-Houdini was going to be sealed inside. I was terrified of it as a kid since she casually told me about a cousin who lost a hand by using one incorrectly. Years later I asked her if she made that part up and she told me “Nope”.
Mom used hers for bean soup. One of my brother’s wives used it for pork chops. They’re still the best pork chops I’ve ever had – moist and tender.
I read on an Amazon board that Macy’s has them on sale this weekend for $19.95. That’s awfully cheap for a pressure cooker.
My mom had one. Any good New England cook knows you need to boil everything to a mush, and what better weapon to do that with than a pressure cooker? She passed the background check easily enough, but did have to wait a week to buy it.
My mom used one all her life. She made the very best beef stew I’ve ever had, and cooked spareribs and kraut, chicken, tough beef, lots of things. I am terrified of the things myself. I have her new-ish one but I have no interest in experimenting.
I can’t believe you Americans with pressure cookers in every home: sometimes multiple.
Here in Canada we have to keep them at the cooking range, and can only transport them under strict conditions, and approved paperwork.
I don’t see a problem with buying one. Seven, now… that’s a problem.
One week? But I’m [DEL]mad[/DEL] hungry now!
Did you know you can make a 1920’s style Death Ray out of a Foreman Grill? I buy all mine secondhand at the local Goodwill BTW.
Jokes aside, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a pressure cooker for sale here (I’m sure they’re about, though) or ever heard anyone mention cooking with one.
If pressure cookers are outlawed, only outlaws will have pressure cookers!
Just don’t make the sort of Walmart run for multiple household projects where by coincidence you end up buying the pressure cooker together with other stuff like a box of thumbtacks, duct tape, and a disposable cell phone.
There will always be an underground market for pressure cookers. Pressure cookers are smuggled over the Canadian boarder all the time.
What I despise is these roving pressure cooker shows. You know, the ones where you can buy a pressure cooker without any identification or background checks.
That’s gotta be stopped, man.
I can’t live without my pressure cooker, I don’t know what that says about me.