PRISMS AND POLKA DOTS

Supper time on this Saturday.  We went to bed at 1 a.m., and the fuzzy one asked to go outside at 6 this morning.  Took a nap to make up for the hours we would have slept.  

A beef roast has been in the crock pot, along with potatoes, carrots and onions.  For the fun of it, I googled the inventor of the crock pot.  The original slow cooker was the Naxon Beanery All Purpose Cooker, invented by Irving Naxon, manufactured in Chicago in 1970.  He was inspired by stories of his great-grandmother cooking cholent, a traditional Jewish stew that was slowly cooked on Fridays in preparation for the Shabbat.  Cholent is simmered overnight for 10-12 hours or more, and eaten for lunch on Shabbat.  Shabbat stews were developed over the centuries to conform with Jewish laws that prohibit cooking on the Sabbath. 

At Chicago's 1971 National Housewares Show, Rival unveiled its newly rebranded version of the Naxon Beanery,  and was named the Crock Pot.  Interestingly, a crock pot can cook all day and uses the same amount of energy as a standard light bulb.

If only we realized how many conveniences we have that our grandmothers wouldn't have dreamed could exist.  My memory of our first crock pot is fresh in my mind as yesterday.  I was at work in the 1970s, when one of the lawyers mentioned his wife making their dinner in a crock pot.  Huh?  I asked him what in the world was that.  When he explained that we could put meat and vegetables in this thing before going to work in the morning and supper would be ready when we came back home, I about flipped.  We had a crock pot in our home within a couple of days, and we've been using one ever since.  

Imagine how many times we use our microwaves.  That, as well, is a luxury item that our grandmothers couldn't have imagined.  My Mom was what we called an old-fashioned cook and refused to own a microwave.  Her reasoning was respected, and none of us could argue that she was one of the best cooks.  

Gramma cooked on a wood stove.  Here I am with an electric stove, a microwave and three crock pots.  When people talk about the good old days, they forget that those olden days were hard.  Why is it that everything looks differently in the rear view mirror?