Skillet vs. fry pan

[vbetts]

I am looking at a voucher for S. B. Maxey's Regiment, probably Sherman, Texas, October 1861. Among the tent poles, ticking for tents, coffee mills, coffee boilers, hatchets, axes, canteens, cups, bread pans, buckets, rope, etc. being purchased, there are also 8 skillets and 10 fry pans. What is the difference between a skillet and a fry pan?

Vicki Betts

[brown]

Re: Skillet vs. fry pan

I'm no Texan, but growing up what we called a skillet was cast iron (pronounced "are-n") and a fry (or fryin') pan was sheet metal. This was the mountains of Southeast Tennessee & Northwest Georgia and I learned from folks a generation or two removed from the conflict.
Speaking of conflict, my wife thinks I'm nuts b/c I am so attached to cooking in cast iron. Cornbread just isn't the same if it isn't baked in iron; of course her mother putting sugar in her cornbread is a different discussion for a different forum.

[Clark Badgett]

Re: Skillet vs. fry pan

Skillets are iron. I too refuse to cook on anything but iron, drives the wife nuts. Got a griddle here that has fed at least 6 generations of my family. I've also found reciepts for cornbread all over the south that call for sugar or molasses, and just as many that don't.

[PVT.BEN MILLER]

Re: Skillet vs. fry pan

Were my familys' from (the back woods of western' Virginia) We call any thing that you can fry something in, a skillit. but we call any thing that ya can cook with thats made of iron we call it an iron. But that s just my family. a friend of mine's family calls any thing you can fry some thing in is called a pan.

-Ben Miller

[Hank Trent]

Re: Skillet vs. fry pan

From Webster's Dictionary, 1853:

FRYING-PAN, n. A pan with a long handle, used for frying meat and vegetables.

SKILLET, n... A small vessel of iron, copper, or other metal, with a long handle, used for heating and boiling water and other culinary purposes.

The distinction that a skillet was deep enough to boil water is also indicated in this 1861 story: "She had also a frying-pan, a skillet for boiling eggs, and other cooking utensils."

Glossary of Supposed Americanisms, 1859, discusses "skillet" in a bit more detail, comparing American to English usage, but still indicating it was more pot-like than flat:

SKILLET. The utensil, a small, shallow iron pot, with a long handle, to which we give this name, is not the same as its English relative. In Suffolk, it is an article for skimming milk; in Northamptonshire, a brass kettle, without a lid; though, in East Anglia, it is a pot of brass or iron, with a long handle, and probably the same as ours. Shakespeare has the word, and Skelton.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[D F Smith Historic]

Re: Skillet vs. fry pan

Vicki

Where I was raised in California. A fry pan was/is sheet metal and a skillet was/is cast Iron.

Seems like this is a universal across the country.

Hope all is well in Tyler TX

Don S

[forrestcav]

Re: Skillet vs. fry pan

It was also my understanding that skillets(cast iron) were three legged. i carry a fry pan at my events. But corn bread made in a cast iron skillet with chilli is tops at my house. :D

[DocReynolds]

Re: Skillet vs. fry pan

The three legged variety was called a spider, but near as I know, there were 'non-legged" skillets as well!:D

Pete Bedrossian
150thNY/3rd NCT

[forrestcav]

Re: Skillet vs. fry pan

ah yes that right I remember now. I'm young and senile. but yes I agree cast iron=skillet sheet iron=fry pan

[Hank Trent]

Re: Skillet vs. fry pan

I'm curious. Everyone who's saying that the difference between a skilled and a fry pan is that a skillet is cast iron and a fry pan is sheet iron...

Are you claiming that was the period difference, and therefore disagreeing with my research in post #5? If so, could you please provide some period examples showing the difference or some explanation for why the period people I quoted in post #5 didn't know what they were talking about?

Or are you just posting a distinction that you have no evidence is any older than the early 20th or very late 19th century, and if so, why?

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[JimKindred]

Re: Skillet vs. fry pan

Due to complaints, if you are going to post in this thread please provide period documentation to support your comments. Those posts without documentation will be deleted.

[D F Smith Historic]

Re: Skillet vs. fry pan

Mainly for my part

I am referring to my wife’s family diaries, letters, and history.

Her family came to Santa Barbara CA (My wife and I are both natives of this town) from Mo in 1845 (For a Mexican land grant, not gold).

The diaries were in the hands of her great aunt who has done a wonderful job off keeping & compiling the family history (Family names in Santa Barbara from 1845 are Coats & Hazard, My wife is related to the Hazards on her mother side).

I apologize for not mentioning this is where I was referencing the Skillet & Fry Pan from. I had assumed it was a more casual conversation.

The letter I remember this from is from around 1854/55 due to the description being interesting in reference to some kitchen ware being purchased.

Don S

[lukegilly13]

Re: Skillet vs. fry pan

Bully for Mr. Trent. I have to agree with you.
My dictionary shows that the word "skillet" comes from the "Middle English word skelet from the old French escuelete, diminutive of escuele, plate, from Latin scutella, diminutive of scutra, platter" giving it the definition "a long handled stewing pan or saucepan sometimes having legs"
It terms "frying pan" as "a shallow long handled pan used for frying food".

Here's some interesting food for thought however turned up on a regional yahoo search:
http://education.yahoo.com/reference...y/frying%20pan
"Regional Note:
The terms frying pan and skillet are now virtually interchangeable, but there was a time when they were so regional as to be distinct dialect markers. Frying pan and the shortened version fry pan were once New England terms; frying pan is now in general use, as is the less common fry pan, now heard in the Atlantic states, the South, and the West, as well as New England. Skillet seems to have been confined to the Midland section of the country, including the Upper South. Its use is still concentrated there, but it is no longer used in that area alone, probably because of the national marketing of skillet dinner mixes. The term spider, originally denoting a type of frying pan that had long legs to hold it up over the coals, spread from New England westward to the Upper Northern states and down the coast to the South Atlantic states. It is still well known in both these regions, although it is now considered old-fashioned."

It could be that the terms come together with the mixture of cultures caused by the civil war (northerns and southerners coming in contact with one another for the first time or westerners coming in contact with easterners for the first time).

[Fred Adolphus]

Re: Skillet vs. fry pan

Vicki,
According to all the original quartermaster records I have read from the Trans-Miss, a skillet was classed as "hollow-ware" and was always cast iron. The fry-pan was sheet metal, and officially classed as "tin-ware". That's the CS QM saying this, not me.
Fred

[Hank Trent]

Re: Skillet vs. fry pan

Vicki,
According to all the original quartermaster records I have read from the Trans-Miss, a skillet was classed as "hollow-ware" and was always cast iron. The fry-pan was sheet metal, and officially classed as "tin-ware". That's the CS QM saying this, not me.
Fred

Was there any indication of their shape? What's surprising me is that "skillets" in the period seem to be deeper than what we call skillets, regardless what they're made from. There are enough references to skillets made from something other than cast iron in the period that it clearly wasn't the only distinction, but let's assume they were all cast iron.

When y'all are picturing a modern "cast iron skillet," this is what you're picturing, right? http://www.alliedkenco.com/catalog/images/LOD5SK2.jpg That's from a google image search of cast iron skillet--they're all basically the same.

I don't think that's necessarily what people meant when they referred to a skillet in the period, even allowing for a period handle shape, casting method, etc. Lots of evidence seems to indicate they were deeper than that.

It's hard to find a picture and word associated together in the period. Miss Beecher, who has a lot of cookware illustrated in one of her books, doesn't include either a skillet or frying pan. So far, the best I can do is this. Look at the vessel labeled "h" in the upper left. On the next page, the author writes, "The skillet, h, has been cast complete in one piece. It resembles, in that respect, our light hollow-ware, but excels it in the distribution of its metal..."

I'd suggest that if you showed the drawing labelled "h" to modern people, not one would call it a skillet. Or are there regions where that's still called a skillet today?

Oddly enough, Miss Beecher does talk about skillets, and has this odd usage. Among a list of cast iron that you should have in your kitchen, she suggests "two skillets, of different sizes, and a spider, or flat skillet, for frying..."

I wonder if that's an example of the transition to the modern meaning of "skillet" as something with lower sides? Once hearth cooking was dead and forgotten, a spider's legs were no longer necessary, but if a spider was also called a "flat skillet," then making it without the legs, and shortening the name to skillet, produces the modern combination of name and low-sided utensil.

So, when y'all are talking about a cast iron skillet, do you think the basic shape has changed since the 1860s, or remained the same? I would have said the basic shape was the same, until I started looking into it for this thread.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com