Don’t take it from me, a guy who was basically birthed, then incubated inside a rice cooker, take it from Roger Ebert, whose love of the rice cooker translated into a full-length book on why everybody needs one.
In 1945, after Japan had conceded defeat in World War II, Sony founder Masaru Ibuka invented a product to try and serve the millions of homes who had electricity but lacked the appliances to use it. The result was this electric rice cooker.