Cooking with Castro Cuban President Fidel Castro shows off a pressure cooker. FDR promised a chicken in every pot. For Fidel Castro, it's a pot for every chicken. Castro raved about the efficiency of a Chinese made pressure cooker: "This is the Olympic champion of pressure cookers," he said, adding that Cuba had acquired two million of the Chinese-made cookers to distribute across Cuba at a heavily subsidized price. "Those of you who would like rice steamers, raise your hand," said the 78-year-old president in front of an audience of hundreds of women, sounding a bit like Monty Hall. All the women left with rice cookrs or pressure cookers, and 3 million more are on their way to households across the island. Preliminary distribution of pressure cookers, which come from China, has also begun. Fidel Castro likes pressure cookers and wants every woman in Cuba to have one. During a five and a half-hour speech broadcast Castro said 100,000 new pressure cookers would be made available each month. The 78-year-old Cuban leader spent two hours talking about the merits of pressure cookers, extolling the fact that they use less than half the energy of other cookware. A new Cuban program would eliminate home businesses that use molds to make dangerous pressure cookers from cheap aluminum for illegal sale. At subsidized prices, the new government-distributed cookers can be paid for in monthly installments and will cost about $5.50. The average monthly income in Cuba is only about $12. The Federation of Cuban Women gave Castro a standing ovation when he said distribution of pressure cookers would start in April, and last until December 31. Cuban families will receive 12.5 million in cooking utensils; including new pressure cookers, electric rice cookers and electric pressure cookers. The pressure cooker is essential in every Cuban kitchen and used several times daily to cook dried beans and white rice along with many other traditional Cuban foods such as yucca and sweet potatoes.