Those things used to scare me to death when I was little!! When the pressure thingy started rattleing I was out of there!! My Mom used to cook everthing in her Presto and in a fraction of the time it took to cook the regular way. All those good veggies from the garden sure were great in the wintertime. Good memories.
We took the presto with us when we lived in Yokohama in the 1950s. Our maid, Masako, was sure the thing was “gona blow,” whenever my mom used it.