A BRIEF HISTORY OF SAUCEPANS (IF YOU SQUINT A BIT AND HOLD IT AT ARMS LENGTH).
PRE HISTORY
If you are looking for saucepanic history before the event of pottery, forget it. Even Tony Robinson, time team and a magic wand the size of Beverley High Street don’t stand a chance. Basically people just used to fling meat on the fire and eat it when it was burnt, a bit like barbequing. Or there was spit roasting, where the meat would have been slowly turned over a fire until the flesh was cooked enough to eat. Sounds lovely doesn’t it? But in those days, when you had the neighbours round for dinner, you really did have the neighbours for dinner. Especially if the wildebeest had been too fleet of foot that particular day and her at number 30 hadn’t run away quite fast enough, what with her gammy leg and all. Other than just the naked flame, alternative techniques popular at that time would have been to wrap and bake the next door neighbour in clay or leaves like pre historic hippies. Before that, of course, meat would have been eaten raw, off the bone and quite literally on the hoof. Weeding out the weakest in a herd after a few hours of hunting, then the exhausted kill would have been dispatched and feasted upon by the whole scantily dressed monosyllabic tribe. All very much the survival of the fittest, covered in blood, well fed and sated on raw flesh. A bit like Swansea on a Saturday night, but much much cheaper.
If you wanted to boil water you could forget it as nothing that you could pop into the fire would hold water. Unless you lived next to a hot spring boiling water would not have been an option. So poached eggs were out of the question.
The following is a Palaeolithic recipe, apparently popular at the time
HER AT NUMBER 30*, SCALLOP AND MUSHROOM KEBABS
1 sizeable lump of her at number 30
6-8 scallops
3-4 oyster mushrooms
1 tablespoon honey, preferably runny
Lift the scallops from their shells. They are attached by a little 'foot', just pull this away.
Rinse the scallops thoroughly to remove any sand and leave to drain on a rock.
Cut the meat into large chunks with your sharpest bit of flint.
Rinse the mushrooms and leave to drain on a different rock.
Thread her from number 30, the mushrooms and scallops onto a primitive skewer.
Grill near the fire, turning regularly.
When they are almost cooked, pour a little runny honey over them
Serve piping hot
*Palaeolithic vegetarians would have used wild boar rather than other members of the human race.
THE POTTERY LOTTERY
With the advent of pottery, fireproof cookery vessels became the norm and rather de rigueur. All shapes and sizes proliferated and once they had been made water proof by the invention of glazes, the pots could be suspended over a fire and water could be boiled. Thus the tea break was invented, and often was heard the call around the cave in those days. “Come and sit down friend. I will throw another faggot on the fire and we could share a rudimentary bowl of boiled leaf juice. And, if you are lucky, there may be some of her at number thirty casserole left.” As we all know earthenware is a very poor conductor of heat, so her at number 30 would have had to be cooked in a low heat over a long time as there were no such things as diffusers, and of course most clay based cooking pots are meant primarily for the oven as stove tops had yet to be invented. Although, I believe, there may have been an AGA or two in Mesopotamia by then.
HEAVY METAL
With the advent of metal such as bronze and iron, we can be assured that some clever Greek or Roman must have come up with a rudimentary saucepan in some early Mediterranean Eureka moment of genius. Although due to the inevitable cost of materials and labour it would be a long time until their use would become widespread and their inventor would have died penniless and alone, but years ahead of their time. This didn’t help her at number 30 in this country though, as with the advent of metal cookware, most tribes in the British Isles chose to cook in a large cauldron. Large enough for at least a limb or two, three at weekends, and perhaps the whole body during druidic festivals on Ynys Mon (Anglesey). Heaven only knows how many neighbours might have perished had Christmas had been invented by then.
THE DARK AGES
So fast forwarding, like they do on telly, we find ourselves in a Saxon version of ‘Come dine with me’ and Alfware (a real Saxon female name. She should have launched a range of kitchenware herself) is showing us around her cutting edge kitchen. There would be a spit for roasting, pottery for baking and a metal cauldron for boiling and broiling. It is here we have to wave a fond farewell to casual cannibalism in the British Isles, as the weak were now merely kicked about the place by the stronger and better off (much like today), rather than eaten. So the following recipe in pre Norman Conquest Anglo Saxon England would have had pork instead of someone with a gammy leg that couldn’t run away fast enough.
Her at number 30 and Beer Stew
Generous chunk of diced neighbour (1 inch cubes), lump of Lard
2 cooking Apples or 6 Crab Apples, 1 bunch Chives, a few Leeks, Fresh Peas, large cup of ale
Scattering of Bulgar Wheat
Brown her at number 30 in batches in pan with lard. Cover with beer and simmer for 45 mins.
Add chopped apples, chives salt and sweated leeks, simmer until nearly soft,
add peas and cook until peas and her at number 30 are tender
add bulgar wheat, check seasoning.
Serve piping hot.
“BRING ME THE HEAD OF CHARLES I! BUT NOT TO EAT! WHAT KIND OF A QUAKER DO YOU THINK I AM?” Oliver Cromwell
By the time of the English civil war most well to do kitchens would have been full of frying pans, kettles, baking pans and such. We would begin to recognise the implements and utensils being used. In fact posh kitchens then began to reflect today’s well to do eateries. As a show of status, workers in the ‘better’ kitchens would have been men, as women’s labour was far cheaper and therefore not as posh. This may well have been the birth of the modern day ‘chef’ although it would be centuries before civilisation would be blessed with Heston Blumenthal, vats of liquid nitrogen, ridiculously ostentatious rubber gauntlets and safety goggles. In fact the kitchen in the well to do houses at that time was kept as far away from the dining room as possible. Waiters were often known to hurtle between kitchen and dining room on crude rudimentary medieval roller skates. Any smell of cooking was completely frowned upon, so anyone hoping to sell their house could forget it had the smell of baking bread been all pervasive. Kirstie Allsopp would have been very far from pleased as would the balding bloke that she hangs about with. The kitchen in those days would be as far away from the main house as was humanly possible. Really really posh people would have had their kitchen in the neighbouring
county. Charles II in fact had the kitchens for one of his country hoses in Belgium.
FAD GADGETS
With the advent of Queen Victoria, kitchens became more modern although they were still kept as far away from the dining room as was possible, quite often confined to the basement or cellar. It was the Victorians who gave birth to the kitchen gadget and innovations in kitchenware and Pots and pans proliferated. The Victorians loved inventions and inventors in all aspects of life. Kitchens weren’t left behind. The Victorian kitchen, traditionally, was fond of copper saucepans. Copper gave the cook of the time a much better control over the cooking process due to the excellent heat conductivity of the metal itself when measured against the fierce heat of the ranges that the Victorians cooked upon. Shining copper kitchenware can be seen hanging in most stately homes these days. A curse for the scullery maid with a gammy leg, who would spend hours shining the copper every day. Which, when you think about it, is hard work, but better than being eaten.
NEARLY NOW
As far as saucepans in the 20th century are concerned, the lid came off (See what I did there?). The way we cooked, why we cooked and where we cooked all changed. In the latter half of the century the kitchen became the part, or the heart of the modern home, a place where a sense of theatre persisted. So much so that in the latter part of the century the kitchen became a place to gather and show off, rather than a place to hide away. Saucepans developed into what they have become today, a confusing morass of chaos. They became a status symbol in the homes of many rather than just the mansions of the few. There was actually a threat to the continuance of saucepan in the 20th century. Many recipes from this period began to look like this
Cottager pie
Pierce film in several places and microwave on full power for five minutes or until the contents of the plastic punnit accurately resemble molten lava.
Serve piping hot.
THE FUTURE
Literally anything could happen in the future, although the likelihood that we will just suck vitamin enriched space paste from aluminium squeezey tubes is as unlikely as personal jetpacks (mores’ the pity as far as jet packs go to be honest). As far as saucepans are concerned most people now mix and match for what pan best suits each job and so they should. Today the kitchen is King/Queen and its contents are now all on show rather than hidden away in cupboards. As the kitchen becomes more central to the modern home it is bound, by its very nature, to become more showy. The choices we make becoming more important and subsequently more expensive. If we look around us today the choice is mind boggling. Cookware can appear to be driven by potentially profitable ideas rather than functionality, and by the need to generate sales rather than anything else it seems sometimes. The modern cook needs to consider what is a cheap gimmick rather than what is good design for their kitchen and modern design can so often seem to relegate function and practicality to a poor second place. What the modern cook needs today is to see the wood for the trees, advice that they can trust from people that pride themselves on trustworthiness.
A good idea is still, after all, a good idea. A bad idea is still, and will always be, a bad idea.
And it’s a good idea to invite the neighbours around for something to eat
But perhaps, these days, a bad idea to eat them.
