Old crocks cook best
For some cooks, the crock-pot or slow cooker is a trusty and well-used kitchen appliance and, for busy mums with hectic schedules, it’s a great way to cook up a nutritious meal with minimal effort, cooking itself while you get on with your day job. This method of slow cooking has been around for centuries, many different cultures have added their own techniques and these methods, combined with some inventive genius, give us the appliance and recipes we use today.
In the Medieval castles of the 1200s, massive iron pots were hung over the large open hearth where venison and vegetables would cook slowly for hours and produce a delicious stew. Fast forward a few centuries to the pioneer era where meals would be cooked in cast iron pots called Dutch ovens which were put in the glowing coals of a fire for most of the day, the domed lids created a self-basting effect which stopped the food from drying out. A Moroccan tagine works on the same principle. Equally popular in the same era was the camp oven – similar to a Dutch oven but with a flat lid that could be piled with ashen coals, insulating the dish and keeping a moderate heat.
Cooking but not really!
A similar concept was used by Jewish families in Lithuania to cook their Sabbath day meals – a stew called ‘Cholent’. In observance of their Sabbath, no work or cooking was performed from sunset on Friday until sunset on Saturday, so Jewish women would gather meat, vegetables, beans and potatoes in large crockery pots and take them to the ovens of the nearest bakery. The baker would shut down his ovens at the start of Sabbath, and the food inside the pots would cook slowly for hours in the residual heat and be ready to enjoy at the end of the following day.
Many years later, one of these Lithuanian women was fondly relating these memories to her grandson, Irving Naxon. Inspired by his family heritage, Naxon began experimenting to recreate this slow-cooking method and in 1936 he filed for a patent for a portable food heating device that had a cooking vessel in a built-in case with a heating element.’ Intended primarily for baked beans, he named the device the Naxon Beanery.’ In the early 1970s, Rival Manufacturing bought Naxon’s design, rebranded it as Crock-Pot and sold it with a custom cookbook full of recipes for this new way of cooking.
Whole (meal) in one
Now available under numerous brand names, the slow-cooker is a common household appliance, relied on by many busy families. Because of the long, low-temperature cooking, a thrifty cook can use a less-expensive cut of meat and still serve tender and delicious meals and, thanks to Mr Naxon’s creativity and fondness for baked beans, we can toss together a few ingredients in the morning and be welcomed by a wonderful hot meal at the end of the day.
Recipe Inspirations
Citrus and Herb Chicken Noodle Soup
