The Honorable Rice Pot

We recently made a trip to Henderson NV to visit my uncle (my moms brother).  I still can't quite figure out how, but I came home with the Yokoi family rice pot.  In the days prior to rice cookers, rice was cooked in aluminum pots on the stove.  This one has a history with the Yokoi family.  It was the one they grew up with.  It was purchased pre war.  Of the limited items they could bring during the forced relocation of WWII, grandma brought the pot.  It made its way through the temporary assembly center in Pomona and two internment camps (Heart Mountain and Tule Lake).  Then to Japan when they were literally dumped off after the war and later, back to the U.S.  It was stored in various boxes between my aunt Yoshi and Uncle Hank after grandma Yokoi had passed.

It was brought out during our visit as a family memento.  One of those things of memory (not necessarily fond ones) and shared experience.  But it's not something you usually display in the living room China hutch.  It survived what we estimate is over 80 years dating back to the 1930s.  American made, cast aluminum, Griswold foundry in Erie Pennsylvania.  It is slightly bowed at the bottom from daily use and a few dents here and there.  I imagine it's been dropped a few times throughout its journeys.  If only it could talk.  It was the central utensil of family life in east LA and the excuse to leave the flower picking early to go prepare dinner.  What were the soldiers reaction when they came across the pot in their inspections during relocation.  It has traveled by train through the desert and over the Pacific on ships.  It survived the temperature extremes of the harsh seasons of the isolated camps.

The JA legacy is probably tied to these types of rice pots.  I never saw one in use until I met Gayle.  Her family cooked their rice in one on a electric stove well into the 70s, feeding a family of seven.  My earliest memory of a family rice cooker was putting water in between the outer and inner pots and measuring water above the washed rice by using the first bend line of your index finger.  Washing rice was and remains one of those chores we try to avoid.  Fuzzy logic and multiple functions are now the norm.  We use ours for our breakfast oatmeal.  Set the timer the night before, hot oatmeal in the morning.  The least favorite function is the brown rice setting.  It makes it too convenient to be healthy.

In tribute to the Yokoi family. Kichijiro, Tetsuo and their children Kazuko (Kay), Yoshiko (Yoshi), Haruo (Hank)  and Mizuye (Mizzy).