Frying Pans, Skillets, and Spiders

The first colonists in America brought with them and used frying pans and skillets developed over centuries of forging and casting in Europe. Early American foundries, beginning in 1646 with the Saugus Mill in Massachusetts, produced similar designs, including a shallow pan with a long handle and three legs, designed for perching above fireplace embers. Some, lacking legs, worked on high cooking trivets. The variant term “spider,” whimsically derived from the pan’s long handle, body, and legs, originated in early New England and spread regionally after 1800. The related term “skillet” seems to have been less precise—sometimes referring to a deeper, three-legged, long-handled saucepan called, at the time, a “posnet,” and sometimes to the frying pan.