[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

For me, Sam's sacrifice of his pans is another example of his unfailing pragmatism. To anyone with any common sense, something which Sam possesses in abundance, the situation is hopeless: alone in the middle of hostile countryside and surrounded by an overwhelming enemy force, lacking the food and water for the return journey the most logical outcome for him and his master is death. It's not just his beloved pans that Sam is giving up, but the very hope of survival: he has accepted that all he and Frodo can realistically hope to achieve is the destruction of the Ring, and that anything that isn't going to aid them in this aim is dead weight. Tolkien is setting up an atmosphere of hopelessness so that the eventual rescue is as welcome a surprise to the reader as to the characters themselves.