There is a specific quantity of confusion about the title 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 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 this phrase"dogs," (initially work animals,) and the terms"firedogs" (andirons,) or"spit dogs" (mechanical saliva turners.)
The first reference offered is an American advertisement:"The Pa.. And therefore it appears to have been, according to hints from the baskets themselves and at 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 elements of earlier Dutch cast-iron skillet (no legs) used for sandwiches, for instance, or seventeenth-century ceramic, three-legged rounded pipkins.
By mid-nineteenth century, cast-iron skillet, flat bottomed, slant sided, and three-legged, assumed the earlier name and were also called lions. The completely new cookstove had affected new bud designs. Legs were removed and rounded bottoms were flattened. This was a death knell for its gorgeous bowl-shaped spiders; deep frying and easy warming were currently the state of deep-stamped iron fryers and saucepans. In their pared-down type, spiders continued to function as shallow skillet but under a variety of elderly names-pans, frying pans, and skillets. And even though they had been legless, they sometimes kept their elderly name-spiders.
The same period produced deep flat-bottomed, stamped-iron spiders on large strap legs. I have two of them in my collection, identical but for dimension (these were not accidentals, and discover they are excellent deep fryers. modernskillet-fry pan set Their structure isn't as cautious than the common eighteenth century variations; there's some risk that they're Long Island pieces. I have not seen them in exchange catalogs or books on iron, and besides the layers of dirt that they came with, I do not have any documentary proof of the intended use. I'd really like to hear from anyone who does.
In any case, spiders--the title in addition to the pan--continued to be a powerful part of kitchen culture. John Galt described a"a judicious selection of spiders and frying-pans." Poet John Greenleaf Whittier understood his readers will understand his pictures at the line"Like fishes dreaming about the sea and flying from the spider" In her novel We Women (1870): ):. Adeline D. T. Whitney invoked a sort of national life with the line,"It is slopping and burning and putting off with a rinse that generates kettles and spiders untouchable."
Another perspective of spider history stems from ancient recipes. English fried foods demanded"frying pans" (not the American"spiders.") These dishes always required a"frying-pan," as distinguished from various kinds of pots like 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 did not mention spiders.
A search of early American published cookbooks also turned up very few skillet of the name. Considering its familiarity today, the term"spider" seems to have been surprisingly refreshing. Undoubtedly frying pans abounded, as people continued to fry, but they had been known by other names. Regionality might be the key to this. The"best sort of frying pan" was explained 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 have to be half full of fat..." Hers appears like an oval, apparently cast iron, a rare shape today. Maybe she assumed (in the date and the prevalence of fireside cooking at that time) you'd understand that there were legs.
You need to go to the early nineteenth century Boston and New England cookbooks to find spiders. The first American cite of spiders was at a fritter recipe in Lydia Maria Child's Frugal Housewife (Boston, 1833): She wrote,"Flat-jacks, or fritters, don't differ from sausage, just in being blended softer. . .They are not to be boiled in fat, such as breads; the spider [emphasis mine] or griddle must be well greased, as well as the cakes poured as large as you need them, when it's fairly hot; when it becomes brown on one side, to be turned over upon the other..." All these are clearly the kind of sausage we produce 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 undeniably a heavy skillet, the iron employed as a griddle does."
Sometimes they were 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.