TWEET! Hiss! "Ah!" I yelled as I awoke to a strange, terrifying sound. It was the first morning of my trip to my grandparents' house in Kanpur, India and jet lag was just starting to have an effect on me. “What was that?!"  I yelled. TWEET! Hiss! It happened again. My younger brother wailed from the other room. “I’m scared!" he yelled. Then that strange noise repeated again. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. I got dressed, picked up my 2 year old brother and headed towards the sound, even though we were both quite scared. “Dadi, yeh kaisi awaaz hai (grandma, what is that sound?)?" I questioned my grandma. “You’ve never heard this before (spoken in Hindi)?" She looked at me incredulously. I shook my head and carefully put my brother down. My grandma gave me a warm smile as her eyes lit up. She was so excited to finally have something interesting to talk to me about. As my grandma showed me how it worked, I wondered why this looked so familiar yet completely new.

Upon returning to Logan International Airport in Boston a few weeks later, the question of where I had seen the pressure cooker was just a flickering image in my mind. Ah! At last, home sweet home! Early the next morning, I woke up to the warm aroma of homemade chicken biryani. I got out of bed and got ready for the day. There were just a couple weeks left before the first day of school! I was not ready to let go of the great outdoors and summer weather! There was so much I wanted to do. I hurried down to get some breakfast. I was excited to start the new year, and I couldn't resist the thoughts about the pressure cooker I had seen coming back in my mind. Suddenly, it all came flooding back, I remembered exactly where I had seen it. It was in the kitchen! Except it wasn't a pressure cooker, it was the iconic Instant Pot.

There is no doubt in our minds that the world is constantly changing and evolving, and technology is constantly improving. The Instant Pot is just one example of how people took technology from the past, and re-created it to suit the needs of modern times. Let's see how this change occurred with the Instant Pot. By definition, "The Instant Pot is a multi-cooker that combines a pressure cooker and a slow cooker." The Instant Pot was created by Dr. Robert Wang and a couple of his colleagues. They built this 6-in-1 gadget to make cooking and food preparation quick and simple for busy families. There are eight models available from Instant Pot! By creating heat under a seal, the pressure cooker creates a temperature that exceeds water's boiling point, preventing steam from escaping. This means steam prepares food much faster than an authentic stovetop or oven. There are endless possibilities with an Instant Pot, and it all began with a simple appliance called a pressure cooker. Other examples of evolving technology include electric cars, phones, word games and more.

 A pressure cooker was simple enough, why do we need to change it? First of all, an Instant Pot with a shiny, upgraded aesthetic and beeping buttons will certainly be more appealing than a rusty, impossible-to-open pressure cooker. Every piece of technology has a function and a purpose. Telephones were created to make communication easier, the offspring of a telephone is a smartphone which was created to make communication portable, and the list is endless. Similarly, the pressure cooker was originally designed to help women cook, back when they were confined to their homes and only had one purpose, being a housewife. Every time a technology is developed or re-designed, it has the same function plus it performs some other tasks. That's what every smartphone company does. That is why they made an iPhone 14 when the others are still really nice. They always have something to add. So now, back to the Instant Pot. Not only does the Instant Pot assist a broader audience, it's a very modernized version of a pressure cooker and is suitable for the "technology era" that we're in today.