Yesterday I noticed this pot in the kitchen and wondered  to  myself a) why would anyone keep using a pot in this condition when there are dozens of others b) what happened to it--it's heavy aluminum so you would really have to work  to put these kinds of dents in it. So this morning I asked my landlady, "What happened to this pot?" Her eyes lit up and she said, "Oh, it's 70 years old! It belonged to my grandmother! It's made of pure aluminum, and you can't find pots like that anymore. When I die, I'll leave it for someone else."

Which just goes to show, don't jump to conclusions about anything. It doesn't exactly tell me how it came to acquire that particular shape,  but this pot must have cooked  rice and beans all through World  War II, the Trujillo years, the cold war, Balaguer...