I am lucky to have many shiny, heavy, ergonomically-designed, and brand-stamped pots and pans in my kitchen, mostly amassed from my wedding registry a few years back. This battered old pasta pot that my mom gave me after college sticks out like a sore thumb. I worry that the other pans mock it after I go to sleep, and yet, I can't let it go.
There is definitely a certain amount of nostalgia associated with this little 2-gallon pot. It was my very first pot, you guys! Little ol' me. I had no idea how to season chicken or mince garlic, but I sure as heck knew how to boil a pot of pasta.
But I still probably would have gotten rid of it long ago if it weren't so darn useful. It really is the perfect size for making a big pot of pasta. It's also useful for making chicken stock and large batches of soup, and it serves as an extra mixing bowl on busy cooking day. As I've gotten more into homebrewing in the last few years, I gravitate toward using this pot when mashing grains for a small 1-gallon batch of beer and prepping sweet tea for kombucha.
I can't tell you the name or brand or even the definitive metal (aluminum? probably?), but I'm betting that you all have a similar pot — if not on a shelf, at least somewhere in your past. It's the workhorse of my kitchen, and it has earned its place in my cupboard.
Do you have a battered, old piece of cookware that you've been hanging on to?
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I think this is the pot that my husband brought to our kitchen when we combined our single lives. the exact pot. I only use it when I make soup, but its very valuable on those days because its easily the biggest pot in our kitchen!
Your pot is stainless steel and has a wonderful patina!
My tea kettle is several years old and completely covered in a patina of oil splatters and carbon deposits. The bottom of the kettle has a fine layer of limescale. It still boils water though, so I haven't bothered to replace it for something "prettier".
Yep, I have a similar item - the totally generic, (probably $10) fry thing that I fry ALL things in. I barely even wash it, just pour out the grease, wipe it, and put it away. It's so ugly, but it keeps my All-Clad away from frying oil, so I'll keep it as long as the handle doesn't fall off!
Sometimes the older stuff is best and lasts the longest. I have a pot made of thick metal that was given to my mother by my grandmother. It's not a beauty, but it does the job faithfully.
Mine is an old Paul Revere stainless steel kettle that a former roommate tossed when he moved out. It's kind of got a curvy early-American feel and has a wooden handle.
His mom had given it to him after college with some other kitchen cast-offs. He'd just gotten a new job and was moving into his first solo apartment, and he wanted to "upgrade" everything.
Initially I kept the kettle because I thought that he might come to regret getting rid of it, but he's never wanted it back and now it's become part of my kitchen family. The little wooden knob on the lid is cracked and there's a little dent on one side, but I can't imagine replacing it.
It just looks well used. Nothing wrong with that!
I use the bottom half of a pressure cooker. Your pot would be an upgrade!
My mom still has some of the cheap cookware from when my parents first married, and passed some along to me when I moved out (about 15 years ago). My keepers from that bunch are a yellow plastic colander, a small, thin saucepan, and a wooden spoon that's been so burned and battered it's hardly recognizable.
I've got a pot like that. It's perfect. That's why I'm still using it!
I have a cheapo pot from a set I bought for my first apartment. Every other piece has been thrown out except for this one because it's perfect for popcorn. We call it the popcorn pot.
100+ year old set of British imperial measure kitchen scales inherited from my Grandmother along with her old cookbooks. Australia has been metric for years but I still use Grandma's gifts for favourite Festive season dishes.
My home is 100 years old and I turned the old kitchen into a dining room keeping and refurbishing the old fuel stove to use for a few of the coldest weeks in winter. Grandma's cast iron pots, skillets and jaffle iron are such a treat to use.
I am young, and so I have only what my parents have given me. Certainly some of the pots are old, so I imagine they were once their battered old pieces of cookware, actually.
But I have a brand new, solid, shiny, stainless steel skillet, and I know someday it will be the charming battered skillet I fondly make pancakes on.
To echo @FLLW, your pot is stainless steel, and it looks as if it you have allowed it to burn dry at some stage. If the stains bother you, they might come off with bicarb and a metallic scourer. I have a set of stainless pans that have been used daily for almost 15 years. Likewise, my cheap plastic colander, which I can toss into the sink without worrying about breaking anything that might be in there (My Smeg oven door smashed into smithereens when I dropped a steel colander on it). Or the ancient chopping board that is so battered and used, it has a 'well' in the centre, and has been repurposed as a trivet. If kitchen tools get the job done, why should I be embarrassed if they are old or 'generic'?