| abstract |
A cooking apparatus such as a rice cooker includes means 8, 9 for obtaining a value or a combination of values indicative of an amount of food that is to be cooked, and a fuzzy inference section 10 for operating on that value or combination of values to determine a level of heating power to be supplied to a heater element 3 of the apparatus, during at least one part of the cooking process. The amount-indicating value can be obtained as a rate of change of temperature of the food while it is being heated to boiling point. The apparatus can further be configured to determine a plurality of cooking control parameters, by fuzzy inference operation, based on a specified degree of final hardness of the cooked food, which can be selectively inputted by the user. <IMAGE> |