What It Was Like Using The First-Ever Slow Cooker

From Mexico to Peru, as well as islands like Hawaii and New Zealand, indigenous people around the world have practiced slow-cooking using underground pits with low fires. It was a man by the name of Irving Naxon who harnessed that method and developed the first electric slow cooker. That initial product was known as the Naxon Beanery because it was intended to cook meals that included beans, as these tend to need low heat, long cooking times, and lots of attention. 

Naxon started developing his idea in the 1940s, and his slow cooker hit the market in the 50s. At the time, more women were entering the workforce while still juggling all the housework, including cooking dinner in the evening. The Naxon Beanery enabled them to leave a roast in the morning that would be ready by the time they returned from work.

That first slow cooker removed the need to stand over the stove as the meal cooked. Imagine working mothers coming home, dropping vegetables and meats into a slow cooker, and letting it make a stew unsupervised while they got to focus on other household needs or simply take time to rest. Naxon himself credited a matriarch of his family for the idea of the Naxon Beanery. His grandmother, along with other Jewish women of her time, used the ovens of local bakeries after closing Friday to cook the meal they would serve Saturday evening after the Sabbath. The ovens were turned off, so the indirect, dissipating heat offered a convenient "low and slow" cooking method that also introduced variety. There are so many things you can make in a slow cooker, including several foods you wouldn't think are possible.

In 1970, Rival Manufacturing purchased Irving Naxon's business and rebranded his "beanery" as the now ubiquitous Crock-Pot. A few years after this rebrand, Rival made the crock, or the cooking pot, removable. Now, you could easily take the stoneware to a sink to wash it without the electrical hazard. Rival also added cooking settings to the Crock-Pot, as Naxon's original slow cooker had only one temperature and it was on once you plugged it in. If you used the Naxon Beanery, you could potentially overcook your meal if you left it plugged in too long. While some modern slow cookers have timers, not all do, and you can still make this mistake today, along with some other common mistakes that can be costly.

It's been more than 80 years since Irving Naxon was granted the patent for the first slow cooker. It was introduced at a time when the family dynamic in the United States was shifting and made it possible for housewives to walk out of the kitchen while food cooked on its own. While the idea of a one-pot meal likely existed prior to the slow cooker, it really took hold once more people used one. After the rebrand, Crock-Pots included a recipe book to add variety to family dinners. Today, you have many options in recipe books for slow cooker meals. Your favorite recipes combined with a few key slow cooker tips will have you using a Crock-Pot like a pro so you never have to feel like you're the first one to use one.