Pots and Pans

Pots and pans of surprising similarity have been used throughout the ancient world and have survived, as basic and necessary cookware, to the twenty-first century relatively unchanged. So common as to be idiomatic, their names combine significantly to mean “assorted essentials.” The words themselves signify their universality.

The term “pot,” in medieval English, referred to a deep and rounded cooking vessel that was deeper than it was wide, stood on three legs, and had a narrowing top and swinging bail handle. Used for such wet processes as boiling or stewing, they have since been known as bulge pots, cauldrons, or “gypsy kettles.” The later, more encompassing sixteenth-century term meant almost any deep container for cooking, including straight-sided, long-handled posnets and pipkins (early saucepans).