> To me a hot plate is a (small, portable) substitute for a stove Also that here too (or the plate of an old-style metal electric cooker). Portable hot plates

> To me a hot plate is a (small, portable) substitute for a stove Also that here too (or the plate of an old-style metal electric cooker). Portable hot plates are a thing again here but were out of favour for a good while, again due to electrical safety standards. > You also make me curious what you think of the George Foreman Grill, which as I understand it is a ridged, hinged, self-heating griddle that you fold around whatever hopefully-flat thing you want to grill. Almost exactly the same as a waffle iron, except it's a "grill" instead. I think in Europe and the UK we were kind of confused that the George Foreman Grill was such a big deal; we've had press-type grills like that over a long period, particularly as panini presses. But they've always been used to cook things like bacon. What makes the George Foreman Grill good is the quality of its construction. When I was a student we relied on a toasted sandwich maker; like a smaller panini press, a bit like a waffle iron except designed to enclose, seal and cook a filling -- cheese and tomato, tuna etc. -- between two slices of bread. Genius invention but capable of heating cheese beyond what is allowed by physics. You definitely could cook other things in a toasted sandwich maker if you were OK with them coming out triangle-shaped. This is making me hungry (and homesick for my vintage gas cooker, since where I am staying has a decidedly unimpressive early 90s electric cooker) > (To your earlier point, I tend to agree that there are many words that basically just mean "cook", and the particular word used is determined by convention according to the object being cooked. Bread is baked; beef is not baked, even if what you do to the beef is identical to what you do to the bread.) Right. It also occured to me last night that there are heritage/legacy aspects. e.g. perhaps "roasting" comes from cooking over open fire on a stick; we just now do it in an oven.