34 minutes ago, rotuts said:any idea what the pan on the L was a designed for specifically
Im guessing its a current incarnation of a very old design of a french saucier when making curved bottoms was
difficult to impossible way back when, even in copper
I have two thick hammered copper pans , tin lined , of the L design
so : what would you use the pan on the L for , if you had pans similar to the ones on the R
beauty , history , etc aside ?
This shape is known by several names: "sauteuse evassee", "Windsor", "Fait Tout". You are correct that this shape is of venerable history in the classical French batterie. The one on the right had no place in that history, although now it's called "saucier" (or less frequently here, a "sauteuse bombee").
The splayed shape was adopted for two main reasons: (1) it allows increased evaporation; and (2) as pan contents are reduced, the surface-to-volume ratio remains relatively constant. That constancy relieves the cook from making as many transfers to progressively smaller straightwall saucepans/casseroles when doing a reduction. The increased access with utensils and specifically whisks was incidental, IMO.
The Windsor can be made using both the old joinery and the lathe-turning that was later adopted. The bombee would be very difficult (and wasteful) to do the old way, but easy on a lathe with the right mandrel. Only if the curvature turns back on itself (think bean pot or Ruffoni stocker) does it become harder. But it is still do-able--you just need to use what's called a "split chuck" in the turning. In the modern world of die pressing, you can stamp out either shape, but you can't turn the curve back to narrow.
For use, I consider the two shapes mostly interchangeable. The Windsor is more linear in the surface:volume sense. I suppose, if you're one of those cooks who buys the theory of whisks better "fitting" into the bombee (I don't), you might be happier going that route. Note that even these compound-curved pans still have a bottom corner, and many whisks are fine and flexible enough to work in even a vertical wall "corner" (all of which have some radius anyway). The bombee probably would be better as a makeshift wok on the cooktop and as a zambaglione/sabayon pan.
The Windsor is so versatile it would be my Desert Island pan.
