Final answer:
The sentence 'I asked the hostess, 'what is in these pots?' changes to 'I asked the hostess what was in those pots' in reported speech. This alteration follows the typical rules of changing from direct to indirect speech.
Step-by-step explanation:
To change the form of your sentence into reported speech, we need to adhere to certain rules of indirect speech. Particularly, we must shift the tense back one spot (past changing to past perfect, for example). Considering these rules, the sentence 'I asked the hostess, 'what is in these pots?' could be changed to 'I asked the hostess what was in those pots.'
This form is known as reported or indirect speech, and it is frequently used to relay information that was previously spoken by someone else. In this situation, the use of 'those' instead of 'these' and the past tense 'was' instead of 'is' follows the standard rules of converting direct to indirect speech.
Learn more about Direct and Indirect Speech