Food steamer
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A food steamer or steam cooker is a small kitchen appliance used to cook or prepare various foods with
steam Steam is water vapor, often mixed with air or an aerosol of liquid water droplets. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization. Saturated or superheated steam is inv ...
heat by means of holding the food in a closed vessel reducing steam escape. This manner of cooking is called
steaming Steaming is a method of cooking using steam. This is often done with a food steamer, a kitchen appliance made specifically to cook food with steam, but food can also be steamed in a wok. In the American Southwest, steam pits used for cooking ha ...
.


History

Food steamers have been used for millennia. In
Ancient China The history of China spans several millennia across a wide geographical area. Each region now considered part of the Chinese world has experienced periods of unity, fracture, prosperity, and strife. Chinese civilization first emerged in the Y ...
, pottery steamers were used to cook food. Archaeological excavations have uncovered pottery cooking vessels known as ''yan'' steamers: a ''yan'' was composed of two vessels, a ''zeng'' with a perforated floor surmounted on a pot or caldron with a tripod base and a top cover. The earliest ''yan'' steamer dating from about 5000 BC was unearthed in the Banpo site. In the lower Yangzi River, ''zeng'' pots first appeared in the
Hemudu culture The Hemudu culture (5500 BC to 3300 BC) was a Neolithic culture that flourished on the Coastline of China, Chinese coast, just south of the Hangzhou Bay in Jiangnan in modern Yuyao, Zhejiang, China. The culture may be divided into early and la ...
(5000–4500 BC) and Liangzhu culture (3200–2000 BC) and were used to steam rice; ''yan'' steamers were also unearthed in several Liangzhu sites, including 3 found at the Chuodun and Luodun sites in southern
Jiangsu Jiangsu is a coastal Provinces of the People's Republic of China, province in East China. It is one of the leading provinces in finance, education, technology, and tourism, with its capital in Nanjing. Jiangsu is the List of Chinese administra ...
. In the Longshan culture (3000–2000 BC) site at Tianwang in western
Shandong Shandong is a coastal Provinces of China, province in East China. Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history since the beginning of Chinese civilization along the lower reaches of the Yellow River. It has served as a pivotal cultural ...
, 3 large ''yan'' steamers were discovered.Underhill, Anne P. (2002). ''Craft Production and Social Change in Northern China''. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers. pp. 156 & 174. . Steamers.jpg, A modern metal steamer and a
bamboo steamer Bamboo steamers, called ''zhēnglóng'' () in Chinese, are a type of food steamer made of bamboo. They are used commonly in Chinese cuisine, especially dim sum, and usually come in two or more layers. Bamboo steamers have also spread to other Eas ...
Har Gow and Shumai at DK Chinese Restaurtant.jpg, '' Har gow'' and '' shumai'', two common dim sum dishes cooked in steamers


Advantages

Most steam cookers also feature a juice catchment which allows all nutrients (otherwise lost as steam) to be consumed. When other
cooking techniques This is a list of cooking techniques commonly used in cooking and food preparation. Cooking is the practice of preparing food for ingestion, commonly with the application of differentiated heating. Cooking techniques and ingredients vary widely ...
are used (e.g., boiling), these nutrients are generally lost, as most are discarded after cooking. Due to their health aspect (cooking without any oil), food steamers are used extensively in health-oriented diets such as '' cuisine minceur'', some raw food diets, the Okinawa diet, a
macrobiotic diet A macrobiotic diet (or macrobiotics) is an unconventional restrictive diet based on ideas about types of food drawn from Zen Buddhism. The diet tries to balance the supposed yin and yang elements of food and cookware. Major principles of macrobi ...
, or the CRON-diet. Food steamers release less heat to the kitchen environment, therefore helping keep the kitchen cool during hot summers.


See also

*
Food processing Food processing is the transformation of agricultural products into food, or of one form of food into other forms. Food processing takes many forms, from grinding grain into raw flour, home cooking, and complex industrial methods used in the mak ...
* List of cooking appliances *
List of cooking vessels This is a list of cooking vessels. A cooking vessel is a type of Cookware and bakeware, cookware or bakeware designed for cooking, baking, roasting, boiling or steaming. Cooking vessels are manufactured using materials such as steel, cast iron, ...
*
List of steamed foods This is a list of steamed foods and dishes that are typically or commonly prepared by the cooking method of steaming. Steamed foods * Ada – a food item from Kerala, usually made of rice flour with sweet filling inside. * Bánh – in Hano ...
*
Bamboo steamer Bamboo steamers, called ''zhēnglóng'' () in Chinese, are a type of food steamer made of bamboo. They are used commonly in Chinese cuisine, especially dim sum, and usually come in two or more layers. Bamboo steamers have also spread to other Eas ...
*
Pressure cooking A pressure cooker is a sealed vessel for cooking food with the use of high pressure steam and water or a water-based liquid, a process called pressure cooking. The high pressure limits boiling and creates higher temperatures not possible at low ...
*
Rice cooker A rice cooker or rice steamer is an automated kitchen appliance designed to boil or steam rice. It consists of a heat source, a cooking bowl, and a thermostat. The thermostat measures the temperature of the cooking bowl and controls the heat. C ...
, a cooking appliance that may have a food steaming capability * Siru, earthenware steamer


References

{{reflist Ancient inventions Chinese inventions Cooking appliances Cooking vessels Food preparation appliances