Under Pressure

I headed back to the Good Housekeeping Guide to Successful Home Management today in search of a topic I don't know much about. There was a ton to choose from, but one heading at the top of page 109 happened to catch my eye today. There, in big, bold letters, I read:

PRESSURE COOKERS.

Now I know I have heard of pressure cookers, but that's about the exent of my knowledge on the subject. I never saw my mom use one - or anyone else for that matter. What are they for? Even my husband, who is usually a wealth of knowledge on just about any subject was reduced to a mere: "It's probably used for cooking things...under lots of pressure." Good call.

My trusty 1950's guide unfortunately assumes that I already have some base knowledge about such things. Wrong. It gives what I'm sure is good advice for using a pressure cooker, but no real explanation as to why I should even have one in my kitchen. For that matter, I'm not even sure I could buy one in a store if I wanted one. (My ever-frugal husband did a quick Google-search at the mention of this, and informed me that you can buy pressure cookers, but we can't because they cost $80 or more).

From what I gather (thank you, Wikipedia), people use pressure cookers to save time boiling food - and it uses less water also. In addition, the water in a pressure cooker is much hotter than the boiling point of water, making it an effective method of germ-killing. People often use it for canning (I would love to try this some day, but first I have to learn how to grow something...and keep it alive long enough to harvest it. Sigh. My thumb is perpetually brown).

Canning is also something that Good Housekeeping reports on with a solemn warning:

Unless you use a pressure cooker in canning non-acid vegetables at home you cannot be sure you are not exposing your family to the death-dealing hazards of botulinus poisoning. Botulism, or botulinus food poisoning, is one of the deadliest of diseases. Statistics show that two out of three of its victims die.

If botulinus bacteria are not killed in the canning process, they create a poision that is certain death to almost all who swallow it.

Oh yeah, now that really makes me want to try canning. I mean, clearly the pressure cooker is the way to do it safely - but knowing me, I would mess it up and send my family straight to the ER. Maybe I can just take a field trip to someone's house some day who is a master-canner and they could teach me how to do it safely, without the threat of certain death for my loved ones. Geez, I was nervous enough making homemade baby food for my son...I would probably be in a cold sweat the whole time if I tried something so much riskier! For now, I think I'll leave this to the professionals. And if I do add a pressure cooker to my wish list, I promise to use it only for simple things like cooking pasta and vegetables.

Until I get my hands on said pressure cooker, I fully intend to enjoy lots of other kinds of cooking methods...namely going out for a lavish Valentine's Day dinner with my husband tonight. We got a ridiculously generous gift card to a ridiculously swanky restaurant (that we could never afford otherwise) from my ridiculously sweet aunts. Here's to love and lovers everywhere - I'll be toasting the town in high style tonight. Thus far, that remains my favorite method of cooking!