Instructions: Origin of the Pressure Cooker

The first pressure cooker was built in 1679 by Denis Papin, a French scientist working in England. It basically consisted of two brass tubes, each closed at one end and designed so that one fit snugly into the other. Youd put some water in the lower tube and insert a smaller tube (made of glass or pewter) filled with whatever you wanted to cook; then youd slide the top tube over it and latch it down. and then youd lower the whole thing into a furnace. To prevent explosion, it had a pressure regulator like the modern pressure cookers jiggle top, but instead of being a weight sitting on a hissing relief valve, it was a rod with an adjustable weight at one end. While a home pressure cooker can reach 266 degrees, Papins device could go above 550 degrees.

The pressure cooker finally burst (pardon the expression) onto the American scene in 1939, when the National Pressure Cooker Co., now called National Presto, introduced a miniature version.

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