There's a specific amount of confusion about the name for that three-legged, long-handled skillet we call a"spider" Collectors of kitchenware tell us that its shape evokes the arachnid-high stilty legs holding up a round body. Having a small stretch, the extended handle appendage could be somehow lifelike. The organic nature of the picture is carried to its name, as was typical of historical technology terminology. It is like the frequent use of the phrase"dogs," (initially work creatures,) and the terms"firedogs" (andirons,) or"spit dogs" (mechanical saliva turners.)
The first reference offered is an American ad:"The Pa.. By employing a certain logic to Robinson's advertisement, the spider, being a bake pan nor a skillet, is by default a frying pan. And therefore it seems to have been, according to clues from the baskets themselves and in the recipes.
An individual can speculate that they evolved from the skillet one discovers in early paintings, where high-legged skillet are rare. They clearly demonstrate the components of earlier Dutch cast-iron skillet (no legs) used for pancakes, as an example, or seventeenth-century ceramic, three-legged rounded pipkins.
By mid-nineteenth century, cast-iron skillet, flat bottomed, slant sided, and still three-legged, assumed the earlier name and were called lions. The completely new cookstove had affected new bud designs. Legs were eliminated and curved bottoms were flattened. This was a death knell for the gorgeous bowl-shaped spiders; deep frying and easy warming were now the condition of deep-stamped iron fryers and saucepans. In their pared-down type, spiders continued to function as shallow frying pans but under an assortment of older names-pans, frying pans, and skillets. And even though they were legless, they sometimes kept their older name-spiders.
The same period produced deep flat-bottomed, stamped-iron spiders on big strap legs. I have two of these in my collection, identical but for dimension (these were not accidentals, and discover they are excellent deep fryers. Their structure is not as careful than the common eighteenth century variants; there is some risk that they're Long Island pieces. I have not seen them in exchange catalogs or publications on iron, and besides the layers of dirt that they came with, I do not have any documentary proof of the intended use. I would really like to hear from anybody who does.
Whatever the case, spiders--the title in addition to the pan--continued to be a powerful part of kitchen culture. They need to have been in general use and broadly known, as various American writers of fiction and poetry used spiders to make a literary point. John Galt described a"a judicious choice of spiders and frying-pans." Poet John Greenleaf Whittier understood his readers will understand his pictures in the line"Like fishes dreaming about the flying and sea in the spider" In her novel We Women (1870): ):. Adeline D. T. Whitney invoked a sort of national life with the line,"It's slopping and burning and putting off using a rinse that produces kettles and spiders untouchable."
Another perspective of spider background stems from early recipes. English fried foods demanded"frying pans" (not the American"spiders.") These dishes always required a"frying-pan," as distinguished from various sorts of baskets such as the"stewpans" where she simmered ragoos. Frying pans, broadly understood, were fabricated in varying stages to match the cook's need of lard or butter. These recipes didn't mention spiders.
A search of ancient American printed cookbooks also turned up very few skillet of this name. Considering its familiarity today, the term"spider" seems to have been surprisingly refreshing. Regionality might be the secret to this. The"best sort of frying pan" was clarified by Mrs. Lee (Boston, 1832) as follows:"A frying-pan ought to be about four inches deep, with a perfectly flat and thick butt, twelve inches long and two broad wide, with vertical sides, and must be half filled with fat..." Hers appears to be an oval, apparently cast iron, a rare shape today. Maybe she assumed (from the date and the prevalence of fireside cooking at that time) you would understand that there were legs.
The first American mention of spiders was in a fritter recipe in Lydia Maria Child's Frugal Housewife (Boston, 1833): She wrote,"Flat-jacks, or fritters, do not differ from sausage, just in being mixed sexier. . .They are not to be boiled in fat, like breads; the spider [emphasis mine] or griddle must be well greased, as well as the cakes poured as large as you wok vs stir fry pan-modernskillet need them, when it is quite hot; if it becomes brown on one side, to be turned over upon the other..." These are clearly the type of sausage we create today, and the technique is a type of pan baking. Child's spider must have been a flat-bottomed range of cast iron, likely with legs, as her age was still largely hearth oriented. Mrs. Howland's spider is without a doubt a heavy skillet, the iron working as a griddle does."
Sometimes they were still used for skillet. By means of example, an 1880's Texas cookbook offered a recipe for"Crullers" that required"a lot of lard in the spider..." but gave no clues about its design.