Abstract: A steamer cooks individual serving portions of food such as oysters and shellfish by direct contact with steam at atmospheric pressure. The steamer uses a boiler and valved piping system including a manifold to deliver steam on demand to each one of plural cooking stations. Each station has a container such as a bucket that receives the steam through a nozzle extending through a hole in the bucket's bottom. The user controls the flow of steam to each cooking station independently, thus allowing multiple serving portions of food to be steamed independently of each other, that is, separately, in parallel, and without regard for the start times and end times of the other serving portions. Preferably individual steam valves, timers and on/off indicators allow the user complete control over cooking times at each cooking station. The steam exiting the buckets and condensate are collected and carried off.