I found myself haunting the cookware section of MassiveMart the other day as I’ve been known to do from time to time when a pair of young women caught my eye having a discussion while waving various pans at each other. That’s the sort of thing my highly trained senses will notice. They were trying to sort out which set of discount cookware made sense in their new college roommate kitchen and what price point they could bear. Having next to no social filter, I injected myself into the conversation out of sheer curiosity about the internal decision making process that goes through the minds of kitchen rookies. Before I offered any of my usual unsolicited advice, I asked questions of how they came to their conclusions, what their stove and storage situation entailed, and whether they felt like calling security to have me removed before I said another word.
It came down to a pretty typical four burner electric stove, cooking for six people max, and next to no money on a college budget. After the obvious (to them, not me) colour choices they had zeroed in on two different sets that each had “twelve pieces” because manufacturers love to tout that number and count lids and even handles separately in many cases. In reality both were an array of six pans on the lowest ends of the cookware spectrum, one box full for around $90 and the other with some faux-technology marketing claim for about $110. They were seriously agonizing over the extra twenty bucks so I could guess coin was tight. In reality, they should have been agonizing over the whole pile of garbage that each set was offering.
I’m not going to even bother telling you the two brand names because every brand from top line professional to cheap entry level out there tries this marketing ploy. It goes something like this; you get six or so different size pans, perhaps lids too, and all but one or two of them are completely useless shapes or volumes. The metal is typically the cheapest China can crank out for the price the manufacturer has prescribed beforehand which includes all sorts of accountant trickery like factors for packaging, marketing, and even kick-back money for retailers. And if there’s a non-stick coating on some of them, it will be the least expensive version of the handful of coatings * made on the planet that can be factored into that price point.
* There’s only a precious few makers of that goop. They in turn sell it to dozens of pan makers who differentiate themselves from each other by how they apply said coating to their cookware. Some do a fine job with the most expensive coating, most do the cheapest job they can on even cheaper metal.
Yes, you heard that correctly up there. They decide the price first, and THEN go and make the pan. Now if you’re talking about a high end maker that number can be sky high and doesn’t often impact the designers and engineers tasked with actually making the stuff. If however you’re on the cheap end of the scale corners will be cut. Guaranteed. It’s both sad and ironic that the cookware which probably services the highest number of households is the least useful right where budget-conscious, or worse still budget-constrained need it the most. It’s no wonder that hyper-targeted fast food marketing takes hold on the lower ends of the income spectrum first. Why learn to cook if you have to spend so much more time and money on pans, or indeed any equipment for your kitchen, that will only last a few years and start a vicious spending cycle? But this is a rant spiral that will get out of control fast if I let it. Back to our intrepid shoppers.
I asked Girl A, let’s call her Ms. Buyer since she was the one laying out the cash, how often she actually sauteed or fried in two or more pans on the stove at once. Her answer took some time but she decided that it was rare at best. Remember that something in the oven isn’t usually a pan with a handle, it’s a sheetpan. Something in a stockpot or saucepan doesn’t count as frying either. I helped her logic along a bit since she was a relatively new cook but it’s more often one pan on the fire at a time then a decanting of each recipe into another dish. Not always, but often. That leaves the need for more saucepans and stock pots and if you ask which sizes are grabbed from the rack most often, they’re not the ones in these sets.
Personally my inventory includes three 3-litre saucepans that are often all full with something simmering or waiting on the middle stages of a meal. It’s the perfect size 90% of the time. A kitchen freak like me could probably use a few more since I frequently have several tests going at once but two would suffice for most. I rarely if ever touch anything smaller. As for stockpots, I have one very stalwart 12-quart model that’s a workhorse which cost me $170 in 1988 and hasn’t warped or otherwise failed in even the slightest fashion since, even with almost daily use. That can’t be said for the countless cheap * stockpots that have been given as well meaning gifts or sent to me for testing. If I happen to need extra simmering real estate, my dutch ovens get pressed into service. Handy they are since they can also be fryers, slow cookers, and braising vessels. I have uhm… far too many of them.
* I’m not counting an insanely cheap set of five (5!) Mexican steamer pots that you can find at any mercado for literally less than twenty bucks. They’re light as a feather cheap aluminium and would probably melt above medium-high heat but to boil lots water into steam for dim sum and tamales, they’re awesome. I’d never actually cook a dish in them directly.
The point is that even if they wanted to offer more appropriate sizes in these sets, every person’s needs would be different. When you look at it that way and realize that four of the six pan sizes are useless to most people, these ‘multi-sets’ really start to look like bad deals. But in the heat of a shopping frenzy not many people stop long enough to really analyze their habits. To be clear, I’m not picking on the young girls here. I’ve seen every age group and skill level fall prey to this “more is better” tactic, myself included. Take one walk through a warehouse shopper’s club for more examples.
My own approach is to only buy pans as I need them individually. And from lots of different manufacturers who each have their own pros and cons. Sure I’ve got hoarder issues when it comes to dutch ovens but otherwise, I genuinely think about a pan before I plunk down the cash. Will it serve a purpose not currently covered on my rack? Will it last? Am I being lured by the shiny new exterior? Squirrel! Key contenders like a really good twelve-inch shallow non-stick pan and a deeper stainless steel pan of the same size with a heavy bottom plate started me off right decades ago and are now complimented in the lineup by my trusty clad saucepans and the aforementioned large stockpot. Over the years I’ve loaded up with more specialized pieces like lobster pots and omelette pans but even they tend to serve some double duty if I’m cooking for a crowd on rare occasion. They way I see it is I’ve only got two hands to use at one time so there has to be a natural limit on the handles I can grab in any given afternoon.
Girl B who we’ll call Ms. Helpful Friend was hell bent on getting the sets but under my bright light of interrogation it came out that she doesn’t really cook, much to the laughter of Ms. Buyer. “Oh she read some reviews online last night is all.” I wasn’t going to wade into that murky swamp so I tried to redirect the conversation to the fact that the quality of the pans in those sets was abysmal. Every bit made from cheap lightweight metals that will scorch and burn your food with uneven heat. I know from experience but most people haven’t got a clue how much better and easier your cooking is with quality pans. To confuse matters more, the manufacturers realize that it’s hard sell to go from a $20 pan to a $200 pan so they give everyone stepping stones along the way at every twenty dollar break. One popular maker’s website is proud of the fact that they have eighteen (18!) different lines to choose from. How many different ways are there to make a pan that does the same thing? Even those that figure themselves as kitchen smart sometimes settle in on the middle ground of quality without ever making it to the pinnacle of what cookware should be.
And I’m not talking about name-brand bragging rights here, I’m talking about functionality. A good sandwich of properly chosen metals to conduct heat evenly for example. It comes down to whether you want one good pan that will last decades and work properly or several cheap pans over the same period of time, none of which will ever help your cooking improve. Even from day one out of the box.
The girls asked me to follow them across the street to the other store offering more individual pans and we again saw the full array of price points. At least there we could select some pieces higher up the food chain that had better quality materials. In the end, we got them two twelve-inch pans, one non-stick and one uncoated as I had recommended. The better of the two was a $99 pan on sale for $49 and the other was a less expensive brand I had experience with for a whopping $29. Both had lids included so they got out the door for at least twelve bucks (plus tax!) cheaper then either of their crappy set choices with pans that will actually work for them.
I think they both liked the colour too.
ps. Most everything I’ve just said about cookware sets applies to sets of knives as well. You need only a chef’s knife, a paring knife, and probably a long serrated knife for carving. Buy the very best chef’s knife you can afford because you’ll touch it twenty times more often than anything else in your entire kitchen. Which one is best? I’ll tell you when I know your hands better, i.e. only YOU can answer that question. And buy a sharpener and use it almost daily fer chriss sake. Sigh… ok, I’ll do a post on that eventually too.
pps. If they’re listening… I told you I was going to turn you into an article. Enjoy the new pans and thanks for the cruller!
