A pancake turner has a long handle...a spatula it the thing you use to get brownies or a pie out of the pan.
The "spatula" you describe is a rubber scarper" even though it's now made of silicone.
I use frying pan and skillet pretty much interchangeable...but for times like "I need a new skillet. What kind do you need? I think I would like to have a non stick sautee pan."
And is it a potato peeler? a carrot peeler? A vegetable peeler or a knee action peeler?
I often peel apples with my potato peeler.
Linda C

This is going to make for some great conversation!

OK, so to me, a skillet is the same thing as a frying pan. I never call it a frying pan, just a skillet or a pan.

Spatula = the rubber scraping tool AND the pancake flipper, regardless of size. Which is rather confusing because they serve completely different purposes. It's probably better to call the rubber scraping tool a scraper, but I can't change my errant ways now!

Sounds about like the difference between nekkid and naked. Depends on the intention behind what is said.

Both terms apply equally, for me, to the items mentioned except for the long thin blade type of spatula. I called that a "spreader." Useful for frosting cakes, etc.

To me, a skillet and a frying pan are the same thing. There are various kinds of skillets -- straight sided, sloping sides, etc. Saute pan is another name. With two syllables instead of one skillet rolls off the tongue easier than frying pan so that's what I say.

There are spatulas made for many different purposes. To me they are all spatulas.

Jim

This may clear it up.

Here is a link that might be useful: spatula city

I consider ''skillet'' and ''frying pan'' the same thing. It is only about 2'' deep, is much wider than it is deep, the sides are sloped and may be curved or straight, it is designed to handle solid, usually flat pieces of food. ''Crepe pan'' is a frying pan that is very shallow, 1/2'' or so. ''Saute pan'' is usually deeper, 4'' or more, and the sides are vertical, it is meant to handle liquids, solid foods, and pieced-up foods. ''Saucier'' is deeper and the sides are curved to fit a whisk.

The whole ''spatula'' thing confuses me. The original word (Latin) means a flat thing and has been applied to everything from swords to spades to, in the kitchen, egg flippers. But silicone bowl scrapers are also commonly called ''spatulas''.

Samuel Kinsey, in his masterful analysis of cookware, makes a distinction between a frying pan with sloped or curved sides, and a cast iron skillet with sides more sharply angled.

I tend to use the terms interchangeably, just as I use 'spatula' for both pancake turners and straight objects such as those silicone-or-rubber spreader thingies and straight bladed metal spreaders.

Here is a link that might be useful: stovetop cookware

Frying pans have straight sides and are usually cast iron. Saute pans have sloping sides and I can toss food that is being cooked in a bit of oil easily.

Skillets are what my grandmother had.

Spatulas are what you are calling pancake turners. The long thin metal one is just called an "off set" is my house - I know it is an off set spatula but that is too many syllables. Rubber spatulas are self explanatory.

Peelers can be used for potatoes, carrots, apples or even to get largish shavings of Parmesan.

At least thats what they are in MY kitchen! You can call them whatever you want LOL!

Alexa

It looks like there is a fair amount of variety in the use of the words, but I was trying to find out if there were regional variations.

I use peelers for shaving chocolate as well as Parmesan, since I don't peel food very often.

What Alexa calls frying pans is what I call skillets. I can now understand why it is necessary to have plenty of pictures and illustrations in a cookbook!

I was not allowed to take Home Ec in high school (it was a forbidden class for boys), and so I had no formal education for cooking. I guess what I learned was from my mother and grandmother, and I still use the terms as they did. I think it would be difficult for me to change at this point in my life, even if they were wrong.

Lars

Here is a link that might be useful: pancake turners

Lars, here we use skillet and frying pan pretty much interchangeably too.

What you call a pancake turner I also call a pancake turner, and always have. A spatula is the rubber or silicone thing I use to scrape cake batter and an offset spatula is the one I use to frost cakes.

Annie

Oh Lars, I wanted to take Industrial Arts but that was verboten for girls. I did excel at Home Ec though.

Bumblebeez, I was the first girl to ever take wood shop at Big Rapids High School. It was right after Title IX passed in 1972, I was a senior in high school in 1973. My Dad built furniture, so he thought it would be cool if I did that and we could build things together. He had to go threaten to sue the school to get me in and the wood shop teacher ended up quitting over it because he wouldn't teach a girl!

Ah, those were the good old days. Or were they?

Annie

They weren't good old days! I would have excelled in Home Ec, but instead I was forced to take Vocational Ag (which included shop) - like I was going to be a professional farmer! The shop part wasn't bad, but I made a C, which was the only class for which I ever made anything other than A's. Then I transferred to Temple High School, which was only grades 10-12, and so the Voc Ag grade did not count in my GPA.

My paternal grandfather and my mother's paternal grandfather both made furniture, although the latter made his in Alsace, and so I only got to see what was brought over. Now I just design furniture, but I've gotten over my fear of working with wood and am much better at it now.

One other thing I was going to say is that what I call scrapers never have handles, and they can be plastic or stainless steel with a wooden grip.

Lars

I agree that there is a lot of regionalism in the use of these words. In my part of Canada, frying pans come in many shapes and sizes - straight sides or slanted. But skillets don't exist. Admitted foodies might have saute pans. And I have a drawer full of different types of spatulas, even though we don't have a Spatula City anywhere near.

and where does the omelet pan fit in? -- fry pan or skillet?

Always been a frying pan here for me and my group. Spatula is various things like others mentioned. Something used for scraping bowls or fliping/turning over burgers, sausage, pancakes. I've never heard the term pancake turner before. : ) That's why I love this place...lots of new to me things being discussed and shared.

David

Skillets and frying pans are interchangeable at my house.
An omelet pan is.......an omelet pan. Also used for sauteeing small amounts.
My large Calaphon pan is used as a wok or chicken fryer.

And I've got lots of spatulas:
"Hand me that big, flat, metal spatula" = Large, square turner
"Hand me that big, flat, plastic spatula" = Large, round, turner...handy for pancakes
Rubber spatula = silicone spatula
Little rubber spatula = Thin silicone jar scraper
Scraper = Non-handled, plastic or metal bench/dough scraper

Yep! English is my native language and I understood all that perfectly! (SMILE)!

Deanna

I think of cast iron when I hear the word skillet.

Frying pans are a heavier metal with or without the non-stick coating.

Saute pans....I have some that are heavy - no nonstick interior. I also have 4 that are light weight with nonstick interiors.

Words are entirely regional - and in this century "dated" also. My mother grew up in McKeesport, Pennsylvania. When I went to the first grade in 1959 she referred to my brown paper lunch bag as a poke - and the thing that held my books together was a gum band - not a rubber band.

Remember when a grill was the thing on the front of your car and not the diamond studded thing on your teeth?

Or how about when thongs were a flip-flop kind of shoe for the beach.......and not a skimpy choice of under garment.

And 25 years ago women were getting silicone breast implants...Think of all the spatulas, pancake flippers and muffin tins, baking pans we could have had if silicone had been put to a better use. Just trying to stay on topic here folks.

I could go on but I won't. Fifty years from now some of the terms used on this forum may have entirely different meanings - some of which might shock us! LOL

And the difference between a skillet and a griddle?

dcarch

This is I think what you mean by saute pan - a sauteuse
see link
For me, a griddle has ridges on the bottom so when you cook your steak etc it gets those nice lines.

Here is a link that might be useful: sauteuses

To me, omlette pan means not too large (at most 8'') with rounded sides so that the omlette can slide easily from pan to plate.

Griddle, to me, means a flat, rectangular cooking surface. If it has ridges, it is a grill pan.

Sauce pan or sauce pot? I never know where the line is. Maybe the latter has double loop handles, the former a straight handle?

I like quirky, specialized cookware.

A recent acquisition: a square, copper tamago pan for rolled omlettes.

I too use skillet and frying pan interchangeably. I agree with John that an omlette pan has nice sloping sides and is generally not too large, although I have been known to make larger omelettes.

A griddle has a pretty large surface but can be round also. Very short sides so you can easily turn pancakes and such. Our griddle as I was growing up was round. I do have two burner griddles now too. I also have a cast iron griddle that is also a cast iron pizza pan.

They're all spatulas to me, and boy do I have a lot of them. Since I have to do most of my cooking sitting down, when I ask for a spatula I do have to do the .. the old fashioned thin metal one... or the medium red silicone one, or the offset, etc., etc..

John I love quirky kitchen ware. A tamago pan is a cool score. I have a nice copper cataplana pan that is one of my favorite oddball pans. Fun to use and looks nice hanging from the kitchen beams.

Here is a link that might be useful: cataplana pan

Lars, you are absolutely right. Those were NOT the good old days, I was being extremely facetious. We also had no girls sports when I was in school. Zero. Girls got married when they graduated from high school, they didn't go to college and the only classes they "needed" were Typing and Home Ec. And that was in the early 70s!

Teresa, now that you say that, I realize that the only utensil I have in the kitchen that I refer to as a skillet is my cast iron skillet. Hmmmm.

I also note that on coconut's website there are no skillets at all, only "fry pans".

Here a griddle is a flat surface or pan, it can be round, square, rectangular and with or without handles. It has very short sides or no sides at all and is used for things like pancakes, french toast, grilled cheese. A grill pan is similar but has ridges, as John mentioned.

Annie

That cataplana pan is cutely gorgeous and fun. I want a hammered copper one! Must - stop - buying - cookware -

I don't think I've ever heard the word "skillet" used here.
They are all "frying pans".
And a griddle or grill pan is as annie1992 described.

The word "spatula" is pretty much all-encompassing, too.
If someone were to ask me to hand them a spatula,
what I handed them would depend on what they were doing when they asked.

Rusty

Annie's story about home ec vs. shop was certainly worth veering OT for. It was great to hear how her dad supported her and fascinating that the teacher quit rather than teach her! Now there's a man of principal! LOL!

I'm from a few years earlier and the home ec/shop situation was the same. But girls did go to college at about the same rate as boys. However, out of the college bound group, boys were destined to become doctors or engineers while girls were headed for nursing or teaching school.

Jim

What's really interesting about it is that I grew up in a college town. I graduated from high school with a 3.95 GPA on a 4 point scale and not a single teacher, counselor or friend ever mentioned college.

However, at that time Ferris State University was mostly a tech school, turning out pharmacists as their main specialty. The enrollment was about 10 to 1 in favor of men and the only thing women really took at Ferris was Cosmotology.

Annie

These experiences will depend very much on where you grew up, perhaps more than on ''when'' you grew up, and most of all on individual decisions.

SWMBO grew up in a small agricultural town, no family member in her parents' generation went to college (they were lucky to finish high school), she told the high school counselor that she hoped to become a legal secretary, and the counselor told her ''no, you're going to be the lawyer''. So she did, the first person in her family to go to college and then on to JD/MBA. Relative to her origins, she is an outperformer.

I was born in Manhattan, everyone in my parent's generation has PhDs in the hard sciences, we were all expected to go to the Ivy League and then get our doctorates. So I didn't. Relative to my origins, I am an underperformer.

In the end, it's mostly about your own decisions.

annie, I'm amazed. I've got almost 25 years on you and I played on my schools basketball team. Of course, we played half court (3 guards stayed at one end --never shot--and 3 forwards at the other end) We played other schools and lost most games. The girls game was the warm-up for the 'BOYS' .. the main show. The buses, however, were coed and that's when the fun began.
But I couldn't talk them into letting me take the shop course -- had to take Home Economics.

A skillet in my mind is always cast iron.

I call flipper thingies spatulas, and while I also consider the bowl scraper thingies to be spatulas, they're always "spanking sticks" in my mind, as that was my parents' disciplinary tool of choice. For some reason, the spatulas always went missing, so my parents abandoned using them when I was around six. When we moved when I was seven, they found a huge cache of them under the couch. I had been hiding them whenever I saw them to avoid being spanked. :o)

I almost never use the word skillet, but in my mind it is the same thing as a frying pan. I call all "flippers" spatulas. I sue the vegetable peeler (sometimes called a scraper) to peel (or scrape) carrots and potatoes. I peel apples with a knife and try to keep the peel all in one piece, for fun.

I took Home Ec -- cooking and sewing and the boys took shop -- wood and metal work. Only the boys with the worst grades got to take Car Shop -- I guess the thought was that they were fated to be grease monkeys (hope that term is not offensive). My sons took cooking, sewing and shop. It was called Like Skills. I don't think they teach sewing any more and I'm not sure about cooking and shop.

kayskats, we didn't have any girls teams at all, only cheerleaders and that wasn't considered a sport. Still isn't, I guess, according to the Supreme Court. We did play basketball in gym class, which was a required subject. We all wore those one piece navy blue cover-all things and we played half court basketball, but never co-ed and only during class time, we had "intra-mural" games at lunch for a little while and then the girl's gym teacher was told we couldn't play co-ed and the boy's team needed the gym to "practice".

John, I guess I'm an overachiever, because I come from a family of farmers and factory workers. I went to college and got my degree in my 30s, while my girls were still small and was the first in my family of any generation to graduate from college. Now my girls have both gone to college, but only they and one other cousin have degrees.

Maybe it is regional also, because I'm currently working for the first ever elected woman Prosecuting Attorney in Newaygo County and there are still only a handful of women prosecutors in Michigan. And just in 2006, Michigan High School Athletic Association lost a lawsuit filed against them for violating Title IX by refusing to schedule girl's sports teams at "competition worthy" sites in softball and basketball. The girls were being forced to play at little league fields or where ever they could find facilities while the boys practiced at the school ball fields or basketball games would be scheduled only during times and at places where they could not conflict with the boys' practice and play schedule.

dedtired, I also peel apples with a paring knife and try to get the peel all in one piece. I peel potatoes with a paring knife too, but I'll use a "peeler" for carrots and parsnips.

Annie

To me a frying pan is a frying pan and a skillet is what many of you may call a griddle. Long, flat, no sides to speak of.

A spatula is for scrapping batter down in a bowl or smoothing the top of icing.

A flipper turns eggs and pancakes....in a frying pan OR a skillet.

No matter what you call them, I bet we would all reach for the same tool when needed!

Spatula, not to be confused with scoopula. :-)

dcarch

ah yeah, Annie, the only girls who got any encouragement to go to college were those who planned to become teachers. In fact, the typing teacher told one girl to forget about college too "Get a job."
On our English final, the teacher asked what we thought we had gained from her classes. Thinking I was giving her a compliment -- whe was an excellent English teacher -- I answered that I felt I had gained an excellent base for college. She flipped, said that wasn't her intention. Gave me a C (on an opinion question, no less) and that dropped me out of contention for a scholarship.
In a perfect example of 'what goes around comes around', a few years later she tried to leave teaching and she and I applied for the same magazine editing job. I got it and she went back to teaching English.

kay

I'm in my early 40s and it was totally different for me. There were guys in Home Ec and my sister took shop. My best work friend's daughter plays football on the boys team (that's as coed as you get!) here in our public school currently. Shrug? I didn't think y'all (Lars, Annie, et al) and I were so different in age??? Surely not that different! Although, I will say, I didn't enter the military because I wanted to be a combat pilot (after all, daddy was, and the military is all about legacies) and women weren't allowed. So maybe I am on the cusp?

Rob, we are definitely different in age. I just turned 60 this year, and I can hardly believe it myself. I think people always think I'm much younger because I'm so immature for my age. I don't have the Peter Pan syndrome, however. Anyway, I graduated high school in 1968, and when I was in high school, the most popular students were the ones in the honor society - not the athletes, and there were no drugs at schools. I think the next year that began to change.

I was almost drafted for the Vietnam War (my draft number was 57, and so it came up pretty fast). I ended up being classified 4-F.

Lars

wow, did this thread get off subject ... but this stroll down memory lane has been fun, except when reminded of what some of us had to put up with from our educational system.

I do think a lot of the differences we have talked about are regional ... I happen to know Annie's age (spied the writing on a birthday cake picture from a few years ago)and I'm much older than she is. Lars and Annie aren't too far apart.

Thanks all for a fun trip.

kay

I am the same age as the lovely and charming Annie give or take a few months. I must have lived in a more forward thinking area, Arizona, of all places. I skipped out completely on Home Ec. My grandmother thought it was a waste of time. I took drafting in middle school. I was the only girl in the class but taking the class was not a problem. It might have raised an eyebrow. I recall little about girls sports as I was not involved. There were sports teams for girls but I don't think games were attended by the masses. I was in both the modern dance company and a cheerleader. That made me an oddity. I do remember finally being allowed to wear pants in elementary school and then jeans were allowed sometime later.

I grew up in a college town so going to college was expected of everyone who wasn't a complete dolt.

Back to kitchen ware. Now that I think about it, "skillet" is not a word we use. Nor do we use just "frying pan." All the pans are specific. There is the omelette pan, the really big frying pan, the little Ikea pans, the stainless saute pan, the cast iron pan, the crepe pan. There is also the daisy pancake pan, the griddle and the grill pan. There was an enamel saute pan but it went to the sailboat galley. As did the small sauce pan.

Lars - I'm 56 and graduated in 1970. I went to an all girl's Catholic school. Like your school, the cool people were the ones on the honor role. This seems ancient.....we had to take one year of Latin. For some reason I took it for 3 years and volunteered to be the president of the Latin Club the whole time. I just loved it and could not believe no one else wanted the job. Learning Latin came in really handy when I lived in Italy. I had no problem learning to speak Italian.

Rob - I took shop class class at the nearby boy's Catholic high school when I was a junior. My friends thought I was nuts. I made a 48" round oak table while the boys made step stools and cutting boards. My father built the house we lived in and made alot of furniture and I did alot of the finish sanding as a kid. I still have the table. Oh - and once the girl's at St. Margaret's Academy found out that I was the only girl in the class, and got 3 requests to the Snow Dance that December - they all signed up the next quarter! When anyone comes to my house they ask if the table is an antique. I always say, I made it when I was 16....I don't think I want to start calling it an antique just yet!

Right now, sitting on the table are a Martha Stewart Collection (for Macy's) 8.5 Qt stainless steel stock pot and a 12" frying pan/skillet. I have been extremely disappointed in both of them. I had a gift cert for Macy's and the MS collections was on sale. I bought the stock pot (which they called a casserole) for the size. It discolored the first time I used it - and all I made was bean soup. Also, the glass and stainless lid is not oven safe - which seems really odd because their term for this pot was casserole. Even though the frying pan is quite heavy, the heat is not consistent across the bottom. I thought it was my stove, but did not have the same issue when I used another frying pan for the same dish. They are going to the Goodwill thrift store tomorrow. For a person that has no pots, I'm sure they will be thrilled with these.

Teresa

For the record, I'm 55, just turned 55 on May 30. That means I have 33 years seniority with the County, who has a 25/55 retirement plan. Yup, I'm eligible for retirement and I tell the boss that every day I come to work, it's because I choose to. (grin)

We had to take one year of a foreign language, I had my pick of Spanish, French and Latin. I took French. Why? Darned if I know, I don't remember one darned thing about it.

I don't have a scoopula, but I have three spoonulas and like them...

Annie

Well I am older than anyone who has yet to speak, I didn't take Home Ec but for one "exploratory" session in 8th grade...but also took shop for an exploratory session, but it was clear the teacher thought he would rather be teaching the boys and we got classes in bending acrylic and making silver jewelry.
I took the "college prep" curriculum; So there was no question where I was heading.
I applied to several woman's Ivy League schools, and my counselor tried to also encourage me to apply to the state university as my grades were too good to go to a "Girls School" Why would any good professors want to go teach a bunch of silly girls.
And that was the last time I visited the counselor's office!

I have spatulas and scrapers as well as pancake turners, skillets and fry pans....and I also have a couple of "schmearers".
Linda C

are you more than 75?

Kay ..75 in Sept

you win, Kay....but not by durned much!!!

This thread sure was funny to read :->

I have always had frying pans,the egg pan and a cast iron skillet. I call every thing a spatula except the offset spatula. I have never heard it called a pancake turner.

I peel my carrots with my potato peeler :->

And I would like to thank all the smart hard headed women that came before me and fought the good fight. I had shop and home ec and never gave it much thought.

How about typing? I had to take typing in the 9th grade. I was terrible at it. The typewriter keys didn't have any letters on them. You were expected to touch type. Never heard of a keyboard back then and who would have thought that we'd all be typing one day!

It just occurred to me that I call my cast iron pan a skillet.

I took "college typing" meaning, I suspect, just enough to type a paper....or "you're smart, figure it out"....and I never learned to type well at all.
Oh yeah and field hockey....the woman's answer to football.

I'm aligned with Annie on the skillet/frying pan i.e. they are interchangeable terms. I was reading the Sunday paper ads today and noted the use of "frypan". Besides my everyday pan, thanks Peppi, I use my Happy Call pan most often. I guess either could be a called a frying pan or a skillet.

It's call a "turner or flipper" in my house because we can't remember spatula.

OT Subject: My DB and I were talking about this yesterday--in my family there was no debate that I was going to college and my dad, who was always forward thinking, directed me to a major in computer theory and minor in accounting. That was back when it took an entire room to house a computer, you used punch cards, and there were no home computers.

The only girls sports at my HS were swimming and golf. I knew nothing about either so I was a cheerleader.

Here is a link that might be useful: Happy Call Pan

They are all frying pans in our kitchen except cast iron & those are skillets. We use the term spatula very generically. It can mean either the SS spatula to turn the pancakes or the silicon to get the brownie batter out of the bowl & into the pan. The only one that gets its own special name is the off-set spatula.

Girls were not allowed to take shop in my HS. I didn't take HE because I hated the thought of sewing. I did not have to take typing because my home teacher had taught me to type 120 WPM by the time I was 12 by watching the evening news sitting on the side of the bed & typing what I heard. She focused me on speed/accuracy only. I had to learn formatting on my own.

My HS had a girl's softball team but I don't even remember if they had competitive games against the other district HSs? If so, they sure were not hyped like the guy's sports. I was unable to do things like cheerleading or dance because practice was after school & I had a school arranged job from 12:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. The job was in lieu of my taking HS classes. I only went to class until 11:30 taking whatever I wanted. All I took were foreign languages (French, German, & Spanish) & a couple literature classes.

Dad would not pay for my college unless I became a nurse or teacher...that's all girls should do outside the home. I had trouble applying to colleges 'cause I didn't take the regular HS classes. I took the entrance tests & did great but it was always the same, "Tricia, so how many years of science did you take in HS?" Me, "I did not take any science, history, math, etc. in HS". College entrance counselor, "Oh", followed by a sigh & stare. I puttered around taking various college classes on my own for several years but with no real direction. Didn't matter to me 'cause I had a great job as an international traffic coordinator for a large pharmaceutical company shipping to 102 countries using all those foreign languages I'd learned.

A decade later, my current DH, without my knowledge or consent, submitted an art portfolio & application he'd put together of my drawings to an art & design school. I'd gone out to get the mail one day & saw a letter from this school. Thinking it must be an advertising brochure I was anxious to look at it as a fun diversion from cleaning the house. It was my acceptance letter. I phoned DH. He said, "Happy Birthday, honey!" And so began my life as a fine arts student.

I just purchased 3 new silicon spatulas. For some reason, when it was just me doing the cooking all I needed was one. Now that DH is our primary cook he needs three! :)

/tricia