Cooking and recipes

The list a recipe is made of, and the first word in it is already the wrong one. La casserole is the saucepan: the pan with a long handle that stands on the hob, and mettez tout dans une grande casserole says nothing at all about what is being made. English borrowed the word and moved it twice — first to the lidded dish that goes in the oven, then to the food cooked in it, so « a casserole » is a slow stew. The French for that is une cocotte for the pot and un ragoût for the food. The neighbouring word shifts too: la poêle is the frying pan, and it is also a reminder to check the article, because le poêle with the other gender is a stove. So the two pieces of equipment a recipe names first are the two an English reader is most likely to picture wrongly.