For the average Japanese, no day starts out right without a bowl of steaming, glistening white rice.

It is heard and smelled long before it is seen: There is the comforting gurgle from the pressure cooker, and the delicate fragrance wafting from the kitchen as the woman of the household chops up vegetables and tofu for miso soup. Yes, the homemaker household has traditionally been the decider when it comes to choosing which brand of rice is used and what kind of cooker it goes into.

These days, however, retired men are taking greater interest in preparing their own food. They join cooking clubs, they fuss over the freshness of ingredients at supermarkets and — according to retailers — pore over rice-cooker specs in catalogs.

For housewives, this new willingness by men to take a hand in the cooking provides a welcome break. For Japanese manufacturers, it spells profit.

Major household appliance makers have developed pricey, high-tech cookers for affluent male retirees, designing them so that even the most kitchen-clueless man can make tasty rice just by pushing a button.

"Our consistent pursuit of the perfect rice cooker and our sales target matched perfectly," said Kuniyoshi Akaishi, a Mitsubishi Electric official closely involved in developing new rice cookers, noting with a chuckle that consumers' fussiness over rice exceeded his wildest expectations.

"They even demand high-quality water for boiling rice to improve the taste just that little bit more."

In developing new rice cookers for the senior male demographic, Mitsubishi searched for a way for them to give rice a flavor similar to that produced by the cookers used decades ago, and the distinctive flavor that produced.

Their solution came in March 2006 with the Honsumigama line of cookers. The conventional metal inner steaming kettle was replaced with one of solid charcoal that distributes heat evenly throughout the rice grains as they cook in water. It also packs a next-generation "direct sensor" that precisely monitors temperature changes during the steaming process, as well as a device that captures "flavor constituents" from the rice during the boiling process and then returns these "constituents" to the rice during the steaming process.

"I believe only the charcoal kettle can produce this taste," Akaishi boasted.

Toshiba Corp. meanwhile has been trying to develop a cooker that can emulate the effect of soaking rice over many hours, which allows water to permeate the grain and distribute heat more evenly to achieve the texture that Japanese epicureans adoringly call "fukkura" (fluffy) and "tsuya tsuya" (shiny).

Toshiba's Shinku Atsuryoku Taki (Vacuum Pressure Cooker) rice cooker, which debuted in September 2006, speeds the process with a powerful pump that sucks air out of the rice, causing the grains to absorb water more quickly as they soak. This gives the rice the prized qualities of stickiness and sweetness, Toshiba said.

As for the heat-distribution problem, the company's approach has been to coat the cooker's inner kettle with silver and diamond powder that it says create heat currents so powerful the rice grains "dance" inside the kettle. Upon completion, the rice has a uniformly fluffy texture, according to Toshiba.

Such wizardry naturally doesn't come cheap. Toshiba's model goes for about ¥70,000 off the shelf — more than three times the price of the plain-Jane variety — while Mitsubishi's runs ¥100,000. High-end models by Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Hitachi Ltd. and Zojirushi Corp. can be had for about the same.

To fetch that kind of money, manufacturers have had to come up with some pretty good pitches to convince aging male consumers that their cash is better spent on a rice cooker than, say, a set of golf clubs.

Mitsubishi has appealed to men's feelings of nostalgia and tradition. In its Honsumigama catalog, television celebrity Momoko Kikuchi appears kneeling on a tatami mat in a kimono, smiling maternally as she serves up rice. Other brochures are full of gardens and temples. Meanwhile, instruction manuals are in larger-than-usual A3 size, with large print for the far-sighted.

Comparatively speaking, Toshiba's models vary little in appearance from the standard sort, so the company has taken a different marketing tack.

"We have appealed to customers more with high tech than image strategy," said Hiroshi Kitayama, a rice-cooker developer at Toshiba. "We aim to answer the question of how our machine's technology improves the taste of rice."

Both companies' strategies have paid off. Mitsubishi had sold some 30,000 units by the end of August, three times expectations, according to Akaishi. "The momentum isn't losing steam," he said.

Toshiba's gee-whiz strategy was an even bigger hit: According to research firm GfK Marketing Services, its model beat Mitsubishi's to become the best-seller in the above-¥50,000 category through November and late December.

Not everybody, though, is impressed by the bells and whistles.

While agreeing that some high-end rice cookers produce "superb" results, certified rice connoisseur Mika Akizawa scoffs at the idea they serve a general need.

"It's impossible to double taste quality by doubling price," said Akizawa, a board member at Tokyo-based rice retailer Yamadaya Honten Co. "Rice will taste perfectly delicious if eaten soon after it's cooked."

Either way, several factors are poised to help sales as manufacturers look ahead.

Amid concerns over so-called metabolic syndrome, the much-discussed cocktail of health disorders that increases risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes, older people are shifting away from calorie-rich doughnuts, ice cream and super-size hamburgers toward leaner native fare.

And despite her skepticism, rice connoisseur Akizawa sees a place within that trend for the sleekly crafted, technology-laden home appliances.

"The popularity of upscale rice cookers reflects that many Japanese are going back to traditional cuisine," she said. "For older Japanese, rice offers reassurance."