craze

Marc Grégoire liked to fish. I know it’s strange to start a report about frying pans with a Frenchman in the middle of a river, but that’s how this story begins. What he didn’t like was the cumbersome manual process of making fiberglass rods with aluminum molds. Nobody liked it: there was no way to get a whole one the first time. Luckily, Grégoire was an engineer at the French National Office for Aerospace Studies and Research and, thinking about the problem, devised a way to coat aluminum with Teflon so they wouldn’t stick together. He became a legend in the world of sport fishing in the south of Paris. Until, sometime in 1954, his wife Colette told him to stop messing around and put Teflon on a frying pan. In a matter of a decadenon-stick technology dominated the world. A domain that, in recent years, seems to be going under. The difficult task of finding the perfect material. In 1956, when Tefal put its first frying pans on the market, it seemed like a miracle. They didn’t stick! Compared to any previous technology, non-stick pans allowed room for error, distributed heat very evenly and, for some preparations (such as slow and acidic cooking), they were unbeatable. Thus, for 2006, 70% of the kitchen utensils sold in the United States They had a non-stick coating. Since then… the situation has changed. And people are switching to steel (and iron). “They are extremely resistant, withstand very high temperatures and can last a lifetime.” These are the usual arguments that, along with pollution problems, people use to justify the jump to stainless steel pans. At least, just before realizing that “everything sticks”: that’s when Teflon is missing and when the new culinary fad turns into a tragedy. All because of not knowing how to use them. In recent days, the well-known chef Jordi Cruz has joined the boom of the tutorials to get the most out of steel pans. And, like everyone else, he follows the same pattern: explaining that the problem is due to poor technique and not to the material in question. The technique has to do with temperature: it is enough to heat it enough for the results to be appropriate. As Cruz explainsthe test to know if it is at the correct temperature is to add a teaspoon of water: if it forms drops that “dance” on the surface, it is ready. It is what is called Leidenfrost effect. Is it simple? Yes, but it is not trivial. Steel pans need more supervision and better technique: non-stick pans give more room for error and, although their results may be somewhat worse in many cases, that is what explains why they have become popular. In fact, its ‘decline’ is linked to other problems. And not exactly about health. As far as we know, PTFE is safe at normal temperatures (for it to cause problems in humans, it needs to reach 350 degrees) and PFOA were removed from European frying pans in the past decade. European regulation is now focused on lbioaccumulative persistence of PFAS in soil, water and other organisms. Why do they work “better”? Because, despite what people usually think, it is not that they conduct heat better. On the contrary, cast iron and stainless steel are poor conductors compared to copper or aluminum. The real advantage is thermal mass. The browning of the meat is due to the famous Maillard reaction which occurs at 140-165 degrees on a hot, dry surface. The problem with pans is usually that they simply do not reach that temperature and, if they do, they drop quickly, eliminating the reaction and cooking the food. With cast iron pans, their thickness prevents the temperature from sinking; With steel ones, the temperature they reach is so high that (even when the temperature drops) they are still above what is necessary. And then what do we do? The key to all this is a few lines above: that it is almost impossible to find the perfect material for cooking. Each material has its good things and its bad things. The problem is that we cannot always have the ideal. That’s why non-stick pans won at the time. That’s why, facing its possible prohibitionsteel ones are having a real revival. Image | Margo Evardson In Xataka | Stainless steel pots and pans: how to choose them, care for them and get the most out of them