In the earliest days of the primitive human race, food was cooked over an open flame or placed on hot rocks which were heated in an open flame. As time progressed and civilization marched on, the invention of pots and pans came along. With the ability to boil water in a controlled environment, suddenly a multitude of new recipes and new methods of cooking became available to everyone. As time progressed, the simple concept of pots and pans has become a veritable forest of options and choices for the skilled cook, with no shortage of fancy pots and pans to choose from. With Teflon cookware coatings, nonstick surfaces and all manner of new improved cookware items, the pots and pans in the modern day are truly amazing and serve a variety of functions.



In those early days, simply heating water was a monumental chore, due largely to the fact that pots and pans and other types of cookware simply were not easy to come across. In almost any archaeological exploration, clay pots and pans are turned up left and right, but before these clay items came along other types of cookware were utilized, including the aforementioned heated rocks. Without pots and pans, mankind did what they had to to cook their food, laying it on hot rocks, putting the food on a spit and holding it over an open fire, and that old standby, consuming food raw. With so much difficulty and so much uncertainty in the preparation of food it is easy to see that cooking was a very difficult chore in these early days.

Today, pots and pans are so advanced that the work involved in cooking has almost been completely eliminated. The preparation involved in cooking now includes pushing a switch and watching the food closely to ensure that it does not burn. With the right kind of cookware, even the close attention is not always necessary. Compared to chopping wood and building a huge fire, the whole concept of pushing a switch seems extremely appealing. With modern-day pots and pans, there is a tremendous amount of ease involved in preparing food compared with primitive man.

While it seems somewhat commonplace, some of the revolutionary breakthroughs with pots and pans include pressure cookers, slow cookers and crock pots, staples of the modern-day kitchen. But these items weren't always so common and quite often preparing food in primitive times was more of an adventure than a chore. From chopping up firewood to getting a roaring flame started, all the way down to applying the food to open heat, the difference between cooking in primitive times compared with the modern day with cookware is like night and day. There really is no comparison, as we have grown so efficient and so simple that it is no longer even in doubt how easy it is to prepare food.

As civilization has evolved, so too have pots and pans, with new technology becoming available all the time. With nonstick surfaces, stainless steel pots and pans and other types of all manner of advanced cookware, preparing food in the kitchen in the modern-day has become almost an art form rather than a chore. In the old days, you would have been required to pile up firewood, get the fire roaring, wait for a proper temperature to be reached and then begin cooking. Nowadays, all of these steps are condensed into one flick of a switch, producing heat in order to cook the food in an extremely abbreviated stretch of time. It is unlikely that many would want to go back to the way we used to do things when cooking food is so easy in the modern day.

It is easy enough to take the evolution of pans for granted, but without these extremely fascinating leaps in technology, we would very likely still be cooking food with a hot rock or holding our meat over an open fire. The wonders of modern technology have brought us a long way and mankind has made great advances, not the least of which is the way in which we prepare our food. Without these leaps in technology, mankind would still be subject to all manner of difficulties, not to mention parasites that are easily spread through uncooked foods and unclean surfaces. After all, cooking food on a big rock can't be all that sanitary.