The Evolution of Pots and Pans
Way back when, in the days of primitive man, preparing food was a nightmare. The chores involved including collecting firewood and building an open flame. Eating the food itself usually involved putting it on a spit and holding it over an open flame, or laying it on rocks heated especially for the task. As time marched on, mankind became better with utilizing resources and pots and pans became more and more common. Eventually, it was normal them everywhere. With the ability to prepare food in pots and pans rather than holding food over the fire, the chore of cooking became easier and easier. In fact, in the modern day there is a plethora of cooking products available to choose from, so many in fact, that it can be difficult to find the cookware that you need with so many pots and pans available. From nonstick surfaces to easy cleaning products, the pots and pans in the modern-day far outstrip the old junk that our ancestors were so happy to have.
In the earliest days of mankind, simply heating water was almost impossible due to the fact that pots and pans and other types of cookware were not readily available. While there are certainly tremendous amounts of evidence from archaeological digs that the earliest pots and pans were made from clay, even before these different types of clay pots and pans were invented, mankind had a need for the cooking of food. Without these pots and pans, food was quite often cooked in all manner of bizarre methods, including heating up rocks and then laying the food on the rocks or cooking over an open flame, similar to the way we cook marshmallows in the modern day. Quite often, the food was simply eaten raw. Without cookware is easy to see that some of these unappealing and difficult methods of preparing food were necessary to our ancestors.
Pots and pans are so advanced in the modern-day that much of the work involved in cooking has been eliminated completely. With gas stoves and instant switches that provide heat almost magically from a burner, there is no need to go out and chop firewood or build a roaring flame. With all of the slick, modern day inventions, cooking in the modern day has far exceeded its original intent of survival and has become an art form. With pots and pans leading the way with revolutionary new material and construction design, there are all manner of advantages to cooking at the kitchen stove when compared with primitive man.
When you think of revolutionary advances in cookware technology, you might not consider pots and pans. But with all of the incredible technology that goes into crock pots, slow cookers and pressure cookers, along with all manner of other products that the modern-day kitchen comes equipped with, it becomes readily apparent that cookware in the modern-day has far exceeded that which we originally started out with. These items were not always so easy to come across. In the early days, even clay pots and pans were somewhat difficult to get a hold of and required skill to manufacture. As steel became more and more popular, the pots and pans became more common and cooking has grown so simple and so efficient that rarely do we give it a second thought in the modern-day.
Fortunately, along with the pace of civilization, the evolution of pots and pans has kept up nicely. With the ability to prepare food on nonstick surfaces in stainless steel pots and pans and other types of modern-day cookware implements, the modern day cook can focus solely on preparation of the food, rather than dealing with all of the external and peripheral difficulties of primitive life. Rather than piling up firewood and starting a fire, the modern-day cook simply turns on the stove burner. In primitive times, the food would have been cooked on a spit or laid on a flat hot rock. Today, we simply chuck these products into a pan and set the timer, confident that our food will be cooked correctly thanks to modern technology. With such modern conveniences, it is no surprise that so few people make the effort to go back to nature and live on the land as our forebears were so accustomed to.
While we might overlook the evolution of pots and pans in the modern day, without these technological hurdles being overcome throughout the years, we might still be cooking on hot rocks and open flame.
