Cooking vessels with flat bottoms and sides for holding food on heat, or to criticize harshly.
From Old English 'panne' and Germanic roots. The verb meaning 'to criticize' emerged in the late 1800s, likely from theater reviews that 'panned' across a scene dismissively, or from the idea of food that turns out badly in a pan.
Cast iron pans can last centuries and improve with age through seasoning—a centuries-old pan often cooks better than a new one! Meanwhile, new non-stick pans were invented by accident when a DuPont scientist discovered PTFE (Teflon) in 1938.
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