I used the same bean pot style enameled West Bend slow cooker for decades. I was doing bookkeeping in an appliance and hardware store newly married and the West Bend salesman sent one to each of us. Completely simple. It had high or low, off or on. Nothing else and did a wonderful job. I could put it on cooking as I left for the office and come home to a kitchen that smelled wonderful and a fully cooked tender meal. After many years of use, the interior was looking pretty stained and worn. What i found in researching new was that all more recent models cooked hotter than those early appliances. It was explained as a safety thing, food temps. Only - hotter was not turning out better tasting products. In frustration, I bought a Fagor multi cooker after carefully researching its temps. Could have been as long as 20 years ago? The browning function worked flawlessly, it would slow cook on high or low, there was a rice cooking setting and it would pressure cook or even just keep warm. I use it a lot and enjoy it still. I don't know what I'll do when it quits - I understand they've gone out of business. I think I could be tempted by a Breville product, I've had quite good luck with their small appliances. Mushy discolored vegetables is making me think possibly cooking at too warm a temp and I don't know how you get away from that since someone has decided the original cooler cooking models were not always safe. We were certainly never sick from my original (70's) West Benn Bean pot style 😊

Glad you're no longer a PC virgin. (Hmm... that sounded funny, but I think you know what I meant.) I didn't get a PC until I was in my fifties, and I wish I had gotten one sooner. Can't imagine a kitchen without one. Time to check out Lorna Sass, the head honchess (honcha? Lady Honcho?) of Pressure Cooking. Her advice is impeccable. All of her books are good, and the last one (Pressure Perfect) is very complete. As you have discovered, the PC's forte is taking things that usually take forever to cook, and have them ready in about a third of the time. Another PC trick which is very useful: after you serve a roasted chicken or other bird for supper, throw the carcass in the PC and add a quart or so of water, some peppercorns, an onion and and a bay leaf and place it on high. By the time you've done the dishes you have some yummy stock to use for another meal. I make curry with about 2 pounds of chuck roast cut into bite size pieces, a cut-up onion, a cup of water and a few tablespoons of Patak's curry paste. PC on high for about 12 minutes and let the pressure come down naturally. While it might not be up to the standards of your local tandoori restaurant, it's delicious and quick and easy. Like you, I started out with an electric programmable PC which was given to me. I got hooked, and now I have a bad PC collecting habit. I have the original 4 qt electric and have since acquired 4 stovetop items: a 4 qt pressure frypan, 6 and 8 qt stockpots, and a behemoth 30 qt pressure canner. I love them all. If I had to choose just one PC purchase, I'd go with the Fagor Splendid Multi set. It consists of a 4 quart frypan, an 8 qt stockpot, and a pressure lid that fits them both. Not as slick and classy as a Kuhn Rikon, but seems to be just as functional--and the price is right. I paid about $100 for the set at a local department store. Well worth it. I've linked to the Fagor page describing it; I've seen it online for $100-$120. And of course the pots can be used as regular cooking pots without using the pressure lid.

I don't use any actual "crock" pots I use slow cookers that use a regular pot. I have had my favorite one that I use quite often since shortly after we got married, so very very very long ago! I was hosting a Tupperware party and that was the hostess gift if you had enough sales, I did. What a fabulous work horse it has been. And my mom had one exactly like it but smaller so now I have hers too. This is the one that it is like West Bend 84905 5-Quart Oblong-Shaped Slow Cooker It sits on a burner unit so you can use the pot on the stove too. I have never used the burner unit as a griddle but you can do that. My pots that are for that unit have never lost a single spot of the non stick coating it is all fully as it came. A few years ago I decided I wanted to get their bigger one which has a stainless steel pot this one West Bend 84866 6-Quart Versatility Slow Cooker with Glass Cover, Stainless Many reviews warned that the coating inside would come off very quickly. Well they were right, I used it maybe 3 times and the non stick coating came off in big pieces. So now I have a pretty pot I can not use and a nice new heating base. I should have contacted them and had them replace it with another model but I didn't. What I do now is use the base with one of my oval enamel cast iron pots and it works very well. But I would absolutely get another one of the original kind if mine every died. It must be over a hundred in slow cooker years lol. I did find another of the pots that fit on the original one at a goodwill store and snatched it up with the lid included so now I have 2 pots and 2 lids for that base. I don't think I have any other kitchen appliance that I have used as much and has lasted so long and worked perfectly for so many years. I do have an Aroma cooker that I love but mine does not have the slow cooker feature, it does have the brown and saute feature. I would love it if mine had the slow cook on it but that feature started coming out on them just after I was given mine for a Christmas gift.

""A crock pot is a true crock a piece of crockery that may or may not come out of the thing for cleaning." Sorry Raven, that's not correct. "Crock-Pot®" is a registered trademark of Jarden (formerly called the Rival Crock-Pot®) and they call it "The Original Slow Cooker". (Actually "Slo-Cooker" is also a brand name for another "slow cooker".) The term for the cooking style is "slow cooker", eg Crock-Pot® 6-Quart Manual Slow Cooker. Just because it has a crock, it's not necessarily a "Crock-Pot®". If it's not made by Jarden/Rival, is cannot legally be sold as a "Crock-Pot®" (at least in the US) and Jarden even shut down a website of recipes for infringement because they used a variation of the spelling of Jarden's trademark in recipe descriptions. Even though it was not spelled the same, apparently they claimed it was close enough to be an infringement. As arkansas girl pointed out, to the layfolk it's become like "Jell-O", "Kleenex" and if you're in the south, "Coke". Just don't let Jarden hear you use their name to describe a competitor or they'll probably be upset! I had two Crock-Pot® units. (Yes, made by Rival) Threw them both out when I bought Nesco roasters. No comparison. Also had a Daisy Chef's pot that had a crock liner (but that didn't make it a Crock-Pot). That unit was a vastly superior product to the Rival/Jarden units since it was a larger capacity and had a true temperature control instead of the 3 choices - "off", "too low" and "too high". It was great for boiling water and deep frying without using the crock liner. I'd have kept that going for a while if it hadn't died. Anyway to answer your question the reality is they're basically the same unit as far as function, with or without a crock. Different units can do different things. The electric roaster can be a "slow cooker", just like the West Bend unit that's the electric frypan with a pot on it. A Dutch Oven on the stove is actually a "slow cooker" at times. If Maryann Esposito had a slow cooker (even with a crock), that was not made by Rival/Jarden she could potentially be sued if she called it by the brand name. Companies are very sensitive about their trade names. Someone made a sauce called "A2" and they lost the lawsuit from a concerned company.