Common pot: a brief history

The history of the soup pot is not as old as you might think. Cooking vessels were a very slow but necessary part of humanity’s evolution. While early man used reeds, tortoise shells, mollusks, and animal stomachs to heat his food, the evolution to pottery was a slow process. Ceramics allowed the containment of food substances over low and slow heat. Ceramic cracks when overheated. Even modern pottery is reserved for slow firing. No open fires please! It wasn’t until the development of bronze and iron that metal pots became another option. A cauldron similar to modern pots was found in the medieval kitchen. A cauldron had a rounded bottom and a curved handle that hung over an open fire. Cauldrons or kettles were used to cook or boil liquids. Cauldrons fell out of favor when they became a symbol of witchcraft and the requirement of an open fire.

Soup pots are round, with a flat bottom and handles on both sides. A lid is a useful accessory. Rounded handles get hot when cooking, making them less useful than the top side handles used on modern pots. Stock pots are made from a small range of modern metals. Useful metals for pots conduct heat well and are not chemically reactive. The food should not taste like the frying pan, nor should the qualities of metal be a part of your diet. Metals that have been used over time are aluminum, copper, cast iron, stainless steel, carbon steel, enameled cast iron, enamel on steel, clad iron, or copper and metal. with non-stick interiors.

While stainless steel has many great qualities, heat conduction is not one of them. A good stainless steel pot should have another, more heat conductive, metal in the bottom of the pot.

In construction, a stock pot is similar to a large sauce pot. A sauce pot is as tall vertically as the diameter of the bottom. Pans are measured by volume. The smaller the sauce pot, the more likely it is to have a single handle, a much longer handle. Common pots are much larger with two handles on each side so you can use both hands to balance the weight of the pot. Common pots are also measured by volume, usually from 6 to 36 litres. The sides of a pot are at least as large as its diameter, allowing the broth to simmer for long periods of time. Broth is created by placing vegetables or meats in a large amount of water and simmering them over low heat for a long period of time. The reduction of the liquid creates a rich broth (vegetable or meat) to be used as a base for soups, stews, empanadas and sauces. Some meats do not lend themselves well to broth such as pork due to its fatty quality.

Some recommendations for a good broth is to start with cold water, add the meat in a ratio of one part meat to two parts water, add the meat before the vegetables, simmer with bubbles just breaking the top (not boiling), and foam that rises to the top should be skimmed off and discarded.