
An Ode to the Rice Cooker - szx
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/an-ode-to-the-rice-cooker-the-smartest-kitchen-appliance-ive-ever-owned/?ex_cid=538fb
======
yborg
I swear by my Zojirushi cooker. There will be a host of comments here on how
it is possible to cook excellent rice without the gadget. These people are all
correct. What the cooker brings to the counter is it is fully fire and forget
... until it plays its jaunty tune on completion, and then maintains the rice
at serving temperature for hours if desired without requiring me to do
anything but walk over to it with a rice bowl. All hail the elephant!

~~~
taude
I also like that on the Zoji there's an hot cereal setting, and unlike my
prior rice cooker, where cooking steel-cut oats made a big mess with it
boiling over, the Zoji gets it perfect, no fuss.

~~~
c0nsumer
Which one do you have? There's so many different ones I'm not sure which to
start considering...

~~~
acdha
We've used this one for years — great results, zero problems:

[http://www.amazon.com/Zojirushi-NS-TGC10-Cooker-Warmer-
Stain...](http://www.amazon.com/Zojirushi-NS-TGC10-Cooker-Warmer-
Stainless/dp/B000MAERM0)

~~~
hga
If you're not cooking for so many people, this model which I got 8 years ago
is great:
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000G30ESY](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000G30ESY)

It'll do 1/2 to 3 "cups" of rice, the cup specified in their ratings is an old
Japanese measure. As I recall, that'll get the minimum serving down to 300
calories from 600 for a full cup.

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nkurz
_Fuzzy-logic rice cookers are a luxury (online they range in price from $50 to
more than $700), but the awe mine inspires nearly matches the quality of the
rice._

Is there any inherent reason that "fuzzy-logic" rice cookers are a luxury
item? I'd think that the increased cost of manufacture over a simple
mechanical rice cooker would be minimal. Is it more difficult than it seems?
Is the market for cheap smart rice cookers too small for anyone to bother?

~~~
emodendroket
I mean, Zojirushi isn't passing the code out for free to anyone who wants to
manufacture a rice cooker, right?

~~~
nkurz
Maybe I'm underestimating, but the code seems trivial. There's lots of
examples of PID control for Arduino that one could use as a staring point:
[https://learn.adafruit.com/sous-vide-powered-by-arduino-
the-...](https://learn.adafruit.com/sous-vide-powered-by-arduino-the-sous-
viduino/time-proportional-output)

Someone who knows what they are doing could probably write rice cooking logic
that works pretty well in a couple days, and a beginner (like me) could almost
certainly get something working in a couple weeks. There'd always be room for
refinement after that, but I can't see that the code would be a limiting
factor.

But likely you've hit on the real reason there isn't much competition on the
low end: making an inexpensive fuzzy logic rice cooker is easy, but if it
started selling well you'd probably be sued out of business for patent
infringement. I now feel silly for overlooking this obvious explanation.

~~~
mywittyname
If you dissect any low-end appliance, you'll notice that they are almost
always have very simple mechanics that work by mechanical physics in lieu of
computing where possible. Sensors and electronics are expensive in the context
of an appliance that needs to be produced for less than $3.

You can make a coffee maker that can deliver water at a precise and adjustable
temperature, but it's going to be a lot more complicated (thus expensive) than
a cheap one that relies on a tube, a one-way valve, and the behavior of
boiling water.

------
Sakiina_
I bought this microwave rice cooker at TJ Maxx, that was marketed by Jamie
Oliver for awhile.

Love the thing. It has ridges in the ceramic to mark the measurements. I put
in the rice, fill to the line with water, microwave for 5 minutes, let stand
for 10, and boom, perfect rice.

I tend to use that thing more than my rice cooker, it's easier to clean.

~~~
r00fus
While the ridges and 5/10m cook/stand time sounds perfect, we are often using
the microwave for reheating takeout or leftovers (or bringing milk up to room
temps for the kiddos). And we have rice (or quinoa) almost every day.

Any other gadget should aim to be as useful, fault-tolerant and
straightforward as a rice cooker (microwave is close 2nd).

------
jessaustin
I've used several different rice cookers over the course of years, but finally
I just don't see the point.

I eyeball the rice I pour into my pot, I eyeball the water I pour in next
(without washing!), I crank up the stove until the water starts to boil, and
then I turn it down, cover, and set a timer for 20 minutes. When that's up I
turn off the stove and look at the clock so I know when five or ten more
minutes have elapsed so I can uncover and give the whole mess a stir to
prevent sticking to the pot. If I'm cooking rice, I'm also cooking something
else, so it isn't a hardship to be in the kitchen to notice the timer.

This technique never fails to produce tasty rice. If one has a stove, why does
one need a rice cooker? I've also cooked tasty rice over a coleman propane
single-burner before, so you don't actually need a stove either.

~~~
Jtsummers
Time. I use the delayed start feature on mine along with a slow cooker to have
meals ready when I get home (I go home after work, set up the cooking, go to
the gym, return home to a nearly done meal).

Not just for rice. A lot of one pot meal recipes you can cook in a rice cooker
faster than they'd cook in a slow cooker, and unlike my stove (more expensive
to replace), it can switch to a "warm" setting automatically.

For me, it boils down to this:

I'm a single guy, living alone. I work from 7ish-4ish each day with a
30-minute commute. I go to the gym from 5:30-7:30 most days of the week. I
tend to go out of town on the weekends or have plans with friends in town.
This means I really only have weeknights to do most of my chores (cleaning,
laundry, attend to bills and such). I really like home cooked meals, and a
device like this allows me to have that with minimal attention so that my
cooking becomes: 5-10 minutes prep, 10-30 minutes of chores, 1-5 minutes of
serving/storing/clean-up.

EDIT: I feel like we all dogpiled on you. You're right. Fundamentally, it's
not _needed_. But it does have some very practical use-cases depending on your
situation. If I had a live-in partner who I could divide tasks with, I'd be
less inclined to use such a device. But that's not my situation so I have to
optimize and this is a good spot to optimize and still have tasty home-cooked
meals.

~~~
belltaco
Care to share some recipes you use? Or where to find them online.

~~~
Jtsummers
At least one other link in this thread has some good ones.

Mostly I just do some sort of meat and rice + vegetables combo. A very simple
(and customizable) chicken recipe:

Can't recall exact amounts, but you can play with the ratios of meat:rice.

2 chicken breasts, cubed (1"-2"), marinade

0.5-1 cup rice

Sautee the chicken (don't need to finish cooking it, just get it white on all
sides), put it in the rice cooker. Add the rice, stir it in. Possibly some
vegetables (steamer tray for this as well). Add 1-1.5 cups water (depending on
amount of rice). Turn on the rice cooker. Wait. Eat.

You should be able to do this with other meats but you may want to cook it
more prior to adding to the rice cooker to make sure it's done (I've done this
with sausage, haven't tried pork yet).

Easily customizable, just add your favorite spices and vegetables.

Soy sauce + hoisin sauce makes a nice marinade, sauté some garlic and ginger
before sautéing the chicken. Water chestnuts and a bit of sesame oil when
cooking.

------
IvyMike
Also see Roger Ebert's blog post (eventually turned into a book), The Pot and
How to Use It.

[http://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/the-pot-and-how-
to-...](http://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/the-pot-and-how-to-use-it)

------
personjerry
So fuzzy logic is just a bunch of if statements? That seems pretty traditional
logic to me.

~~~
giardini
Fuzzy logic is not a "bunch of if statements".

Fuzzy logic differs from classical logic. In fuzzy logic one can model
arbitrary (linear or nonlinear) functions.

In particular, in fuzzy logic the law of the excluded middle does not hold. So
truth values can be true, false or something in-between. Typically the
categorical (true, false) is replaced by the the closed interval [0, 1], with
0 meaning "absolutely false", 1 meaning "absolutely true", and an infinity of
possible valid values in between, each to some degree true and to some degree
false.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzzy_logic#Overview](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzzy_logic#Overview)

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
Part of the problem is the name. The late Bob Pease (google him: fascinating
character even if you're not an EE) in particular trashed Fuzzy Logic/Fuzzy
Control every time he had a chance.

Call it by its alternate name of Multivariate Logic and it seems less...
fuzzy.

~~~
giardini
1\. Pease has some good points to make about the use of fuzzy logic in control
systems (e.g., difficult to prove robustness of nonlinear models) but it
appears that he never stopped criticizing long enough to really find out what
fuzzy logic was and the advantages it might bring (e.g., nonlinear control
systems, use of human intuitive knowledge in control systems).

Nonetheless Pease is funny reading and his writings likely contributed to slow
US adoption of fuzzy logic control systems. As a result of this (and the
unfortunate literal minterpretations of the term itself perhaps) fuzzy logic
control systems in steadicams, helicopter guidance, subway control systems,
rice cookers, washing machines, etc. that we use today mostly originate from
abroad. .

2\. I've never read/heard the term "Multivariate Logic" used as a synonym for
fuzzy logic.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
I wish I could find the class handouts, but I think the "multivariate logic"
term came from a short introductory class on Fuzzy Logic I took a very long
time ago.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
Can't edit, but it looks like I meant "multivalued" not "multivariate" logic.

------
srcreigh
The author talks about fuzzy logic as being probabilistic and having to do
with natural language, and that fuzzy logic is "the kind of logic we most
often use here at FiveThirtyEight." However, the rice cooker is not
probabilistic at all, and takes discrete input (not natural language):

> In my current fuzzy-logic [sic.] cooker, however, I tell the machine what
> kind of rice I’m using [white or brown] and how long it has been soaking [a
> decimal value]. It takes that [discrete] information and decides what
> temperature it should reach, and for how long. _Generally using what are
> essentially if /then statements_, [emphasis mine] it can fine-tune the
> process.

Anna, what is your reader supposed to think when your only example doesn't
meet the requirements you set out for it yourself? It is especially alarming
here since the thing you're trying to illustrate is the way your organization
thinks.

> “Fuzzy theory is wrong — wrong and pernicious,” Kahan said. “The danger of
> fuzzy theory is that it will encourage the sort of imprecise thinking that
> brought us to so much trouble.”

~~~
emodendroket
Your "sic" is gratuitous; it's being hyphenated because it's being used
attributively/as an adjective.

I guess you could describe the rice cooker as "taking a much larger number of
inputs than a traditional rice cooker" but that doesn't seem to work as a
marketing slogan as well as "fuzzy logic."

~~~
srcreigh
It's not a fuzzy logic rice cooker. I've used [sic] because it's an incorrect
characterization of the item.

I agree with your marketing observation. Maybe they could have called it
sophisticated logic (or something like that)? The history of fuzzy logic
(which was cool) could be replaced with stories of sophisticated problem
solving.

~~~
taco_emoji
[Sic] is used to indicate that a linguistic malformation or variance within a
quotation is being intentionally reproduced from the original source, thus
preventing the reader from thinking that the disfluency was newly introduced
in the act of transcription. Using it to express your personal opinion on the
perfectly grammatical and accurately spelled content of the quotation is
terribly confusing.

------
kris-s
Stuff like this always reminds me how much room there is for making a product
that makes an inconspicuous everyday activity better, but also how much
staying power "good enough" has.

------
julie1
Fuzzy logic is back again? It used to make the headlines in the 90s for being
the next revolution in industrial control (of furnaces).

I use rice cookers since 35 years (I am 43) I don't care about brown rice or
whatever the fuzzy logic. I just adapt according to my own experience.

But I guess people don't want to have experience any more and prefer to be
assisted as a hero of Wall-e?

------
sitkack
I have nailed making rice by hand with no measuring, the nice thing about
cooking it manually is that one can modify the parameters, soggy, fluffy, al
dente, all easily achievable and the rice is done in 12-15 minutes.

1\. Fill sauce pan at most half way with water

2\. Create perfect cone from bottom of pan to the center, just pierce the
surface

3\. Boil in this config for 1 minute

4\. stire rice thoroughly, breaking apart clumps, add smidge of olive oil

5\. turn down to low heat for 12-15 minutes

To get drier rice, add more above water line, to get more al dente, don't cook
for as long.

~~~
maloney
I've been cooking rice like this for the last 15 years. I recently bought a
Zojirushi rice cooker and I now regret not getting one sooner. The Zojirushi
makes far superior rice than I ever managed and it makes it perfect every
time. Not to mention it also cooks mixed/brown/sushi/grits/steel cut oats
perfectly as well. Throw in the fact that I can use the timer to have steel
cut oats ready when I wake up in the morning make it worth every penny.

~~~
sitkack
I get that, I used to own a couple rice cookers, both a super low end $20
version and a higher end version from japan that required a transformer (very
old, like from the mid 90s I think).

I might go back someday, but I have new found love for portable skills, no
machine necessary. If I ate more rice, I'd probably get one again.

------
lisivka
I use microwave oven to cook Rice and Buckwheat. Half of cup rice, then cup of
water. Wait at least 15 minutes for rice and about 3 minutes for Buckwheat for
water to soak in (important step). Then I program oven to cook 4:10-4:50 at
full power (800W), then 11-15 minutes at 40% power. Piece of chicken, or one
or two eggs (at then end of cooking) are welcome.

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smelterdemon
Rice cookers would impress me more if they had some kind of built in stirring
mechanism, and even more if they dispensed liquid at a certain rate- then they
could crank out perfectly consistent, effortless risotto. As it stands they
don't meet the right utility/space ratio to find a place in my smallish
kitchen.

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unicornporn
Hasn't the arsenic in rice news been a big thing in the US? Here in Sweden the
FDA equivalent discourages people to eat rice too often (the recommendations
are a bit vague).

~~~
ghaff
I found it online now that you mentioned it. But, no, this hasn't been a big
thing in the US and I for one had never even heard about it.

------
wagglycocks
I have a rice cooker from Amazon that was less than $100 and works perfectly.
I don't know if it uses fuzzy logic or not. Is there an easy way to tell?

