Credit: Marco Giglio
Posted on 03/31/2016 12:54:26 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
Italian archaeologists have found a site near Naples where the precursors of non-stick pans were produced more than 2,000 years ago.
The finding confirms that non-stick frying pans, an essential tool in any modern kitchen, were used in the Roman Empire.
The cookware was known as "Cumanae testae" or "Cumanae patellae," (pans from the city of Cumae) and was mentioned in the first-century Roman cookbook De Re Coquinaria as the most suitable pans for making chicken stews.
However, the pans from Cumae remained a mystery until 1975, when Giuseppe Pucci, archaeologist and professor of history of Greek and Roman art, attempted an identification.
Pucci proposed that a pottery commonly known as Pompeian Red Ware which featured a heavy red-slip coating in the inside, was the "Cumanae testae" from historical sources.
Now Marco Giglio, Giovanni Borriello and Stefano Iavarone, archaeologists at the University of Naples "L'Orientale," have found evidence in Cumae to support Pucci's identification.
"We found a dump site filled with internal red-slip cookware fragments. The dumping was used by a pottery factory. This shows for the first time the Cumanae patellae were indeed produced in this city," Giglio told Discovery News.
Giglio and colleagues found more than 50,000 fragments of lids, pots and pans of various sizes and thickness, each featuring a very distinct coating.
"All the defective artifacts were dumped here. These pieces help us enormously to reconstruct the way the pottery was manufactured," Giglio said.
Many of the fragments featured the thick internal red-slip coating that provided a non-adherent surface, making the pots and pans ideal for cooking meat-based stews.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.discovery.com ...
Credit: Marco Giglio
Looks like a shiny red glaze on the pottery pieces. I can see it being smooth and non-porous but not non-stick — similar to modern enameled cookware, which is definitely not non-stick. The Romans did have cast iron cookware, though, which naturally and inevitably develops an excellent non-stick surface as it’s cooked with. So they would have had eggs that slid out of the pan but it was more likely to have been on cast iron than this red ceramic material. I would guess that the real virtue of the red pottery was a high degree of uniformity and non-porosity, which would have been ideal for long slow simmering since none of the liquid would have been wicked away through imperfections in the surface.
“Only 19 sesterces for the pair! Send a messenger now, and we’ll double your order! Just pay separate handling. But wait, there’s more!...”
But, but, but — Cumae was a Greek colony! You would have known that naturally, if you’d seen “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” 1 and 2! The Neapolitans destroyed the colony.
I’ve never trusted that ice cream.
LOL!
Ping to Jamestown1630 of the cooking thread!
The research on it was performed at the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University back in the '70s, I think.
The history: http://www.tuftyceramics.com/history.html
Says who? Eggs don't stick to the pan if you fry them, as in "to cook with oil".
I fry eggs over low heat on quality bonded stainless steel in plenty of butter. They slide out of the pan and taste wonderful. Cleanup is as easy as with non-stick pans, and mine will last me the rest of my life.
They look great hanging from the pan rack, too.
No, it is matte, not shiny. It is red because the clay-based coating is made from shale, just like bricks, only ground a bit finer and made into a slip which is applied to underlying coarse ceramic by dipping in water-based slip or bu brushing, then subjecting to a glost firing. IIRC
That French bread pan (open ended trough) looks interesting.
Non stick pan.....
Would a Clinton joke be out of place ?..... :)
Bookmark for ceramic cookware
Maybe Peter Pan, or just Peter, or non-nonstick, or Hillary’s such a dishonest bitch...
I have one of these, but yes, the stone ware looks interesting. Too bad it isnt covered like a cloche. Crust in a cloche can not be beat. http://www.amazon.com/SuperStone-11-Cloche-Dome-Baker/dp/B00004S1D5
Y’know, I think I’ve seen those at GB Russo’s.
And on an unrelated note, best knives I’ve ever used:
https://www.warthercutlery.com/
You nailed it for me. Cast iron was the original non-stick cookware. I am a huge Lodge fan, have even done the factory tour, which is only available one week a year.
Though in the Roman era, CI was probably still too expensive for that usage for most, versus usage for military items, transportation (axles and wheel rims and such), building hardware, etc.
I’ve seen those in the “as seen on TV” sections (usually an endcap) of stores around here, including, I guess not surprisinglyl, Big Lots. Haven’t tried them yet.
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