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Evidence index · Cookware

Cookware: where beginners and collectors agree

Only the cookware that beginners and collectors have independently backed. A product one group praises and the other has never mentioned does not appear here.

beginners is who the advice is aimed at; collectors is who the advice is aimed at.

7 people on record as beginners and collectors make 89 quoted claims about cookware across 15 sources. Membership is recorded with its own evidence — for a person by the trait they are on record holding, for a community by the source it was said in — and authority is scoped to cookware rather than to fame.

Which cookware do both beginners and collectors recommend?

Endorsements and objections about cookware from beginners and collectors, together, strongest evidence first.

Lodge cast iron skillet

4 voices 14 claims 4 objections

2:03 supports Uncle Scott speaking on Uncle Scott's Kitchen Beginners earns commission on this
not quite as heavy as the lodge 12 inch cast iron but I will say that cast iron is a little bit easier to maneuver when I pick up this cast iron my thumb rests very close to the pan body not very far out on the handle

handling Owns it Worth $300 for a Demeyere Proline Atlantis?

Cites handle

Uncle Scott earns commission on this. Stated in the source: “Lodge Cast Iron Cookware: https://lodgecastiron.pxf.io/ravEOj” Kept and labelled rather than dropped: a paid endorsement is still evidence, and you should be the one to decide what it is worth.

Field cast iron skillet

3 voices 41 claims 16 objections

3:31 supports Uncle Scott speaking on Uncle Scott's Kitchen Beginners
It's [music] got three layers of grape seed seasoning on it. So, you can just give it a wash and just start cooking.

performance Tested it Field Cast Iron Review: Egg Problems & Great Gratins

Cites heat retention, maintenance, non-stick surface, searing and crust

the field turned out some nice cornbread, no sticking and a nice crust.
this field cranked out an absolutely delicious [music] grten with no sticking on the potatoes.
Butter potatoes. Those brown up pretty nicely and they did not stick. That's a good thing.
But the field did okay here and I think it helped with the browning that both the potatoes and the okra, they get moved around a little bit.
I think you did an okay job with bacon. Just a little bit of pulling on there, but the um the card says uh bacon can actually stick a little bit early on. So, with that in mind, I think it did uh just fine. I started it out in a room temperature pan, brought it up to heat, some early [music] flips, and mostly…
Um I mentioned that the pan doesn't have as much thermal mass as maybe some other cast irons or carbon steels for that matter, but I am still getting a good sear and browning here.
And here, summoning every bit of egg sliding mojo that I could muster, [music] I got a moderately decent sliding egg. It released even did okay on the flip. You know, cast iron skillets are not really known for flipping eggs, so the side walls are too tall, etc., etc., but it's still released on that second side, and…
2:01 objects Uncle Scott speaking on Uncle Scott's Kitchen Beginners
I think that lack of heaviness, lack of thermal mass, lack of metal, however you want to um describe that, uh for me anyway, I think it made the pan a little bit more difficult to cook in. It's difficult to get it heated evenly. I feel like um it's responsive, which is great for a uh copper skillet, for example. But…

performance Tested it Field Cast Iron Review: Egg Problems & Great Gratins

Cites base and rim (against), even heating (against), heat retention (against), non-stick surface (against), size and capacity (against), surface finish (against)

And I think one of the reasons I've had so much trouble with eggs in that field is that um those grooves, they uh I think they have not filled in yet and um they're kind of gripping food a little bit when I try and slide it around.
There is [music] a very tiny uh ring around the bottom of the pan which makes it sit up just a little bit. It's barely even noticeable. The Brevel has a temperature sensor in the middle of the cooking surface there and it has to stick up and make contact [music] with the bottom of a pan. Um there's also a logo here in…
Uh, no matter what I tried, I was getting, um, different essentially different cooking zones. I couldn't get the pan heated very evenly and I would put an egg in and sometimes um, part of an egg would stick and part would slide and the egg would come apart. And I think that's because the pan is not heated evenly and…
This uh 10-in pan um I had to work in two batches.
It's [music] um too narrow to lay out strips of supermarket bacon, but it will hold four if you cut them in half.
Let's talk a little bit more about that uneven heating though here. Uh you can really see it with these grilled cheese sandwiches. Give them their first turn there. And you can definitely see where one half of the grilled cheese is toasted and the other uh the butter is melted, but there is no toasting on there. So,…
I've also made some breaded squash and zucchini. And I like these for testing pans because I can lay them out all around the pan. Then when I flip them, I can tell if they're hotter or cooler spots. You can definitely tell that um some of these zucchini are much browner than the others.
And it's just a little bit more uneven and a little bit more difficult to cook in this pan than some others I have reviewed.
And after doing a ton of work on the seasoning and doing a lot of cooking, circling back to eggs, and I got this. And I got to say, I have never seen that [laughter] fried egg before. It's almost like uh orbiting almost like a planet or something. I don't know if that counts as half of a fried egg. never had um a…
And finally, I got to where I found that, uh, just trying different temperatures, if I went really, really low, um, I could get an egg to release, and this is after three or four minutes of setting up very, very slowly. I could get an egg to kind of sort of release and it'll move around, but I still say that egg is…

What do beginners and collectors say about cookware in general?

Not a recommendation for a specific product: technique, materials and what to look for in cookware. Citable on its own terms. There are 34 of them; the 31 with the strongest evidence are below.

2:36 objects Uncle Scott speaking on Uncle Scott's Kitchen Beginners
if you have an electric flattop stove it makes it more difficult to get your pan seasoned now i season my pan regularly when our gas stove top if you're cooking on a gas stove top the flame hits the bottom moves outward enough around the sides of the pan so you get a good even distribution of heat all over the pan…

use-case fit Owns it Matfer Carbon Steel Pan Seasoning Problems Solved

Cites heat conduction (against)

3:02 supports Uncle Scott speaking on Uncle Scott's Kitchen Beginners
if you get some micro scratches on the surface of your carbon steel pan no big deal um those will fill in with seasoning the next time you season the pan and lots of people think that those little micro scratches give that seasoning something to grip to and it lasts a little bit longer the next time

performance Tested it Remove Rust from Carbon Steel

Cites seasoning durability

1:35 supports Uncle Scott speaking on Uncle Scott's Kitchen Beginners
you do not have to season your pan 11 times to get it to work correctly that's just crazy that's like a new hobby or lifestyle commitment you don't have to do that what you need to do is season your pan correctly one time once you've done that it'll pass the fried egg test

performance Matfer Carbon Steel Pan Seasoning Problems Solved

Cites speed and efficiency

9:39 notes Uncle Scott speaking on Uncle Scott's Kitchen Beginners
she's one of these good old southern traditional cooks she's been using 70 80 year old cast-iron skillets that were handed down from her mother she's been using these for 40 or 50 years

ownership Passing on someone else's experience Matfer Carbon Steel Pan Seasoning Problems Solved

13:06 supports Big Lew BBQ & Other Things I Want to Do! Collectors
um i do have an eight that dates to the roosevelt administration that i use a lot one that dates to the other roosevelt administration that i use a lot actually predates that one and uh it's got a gate mark on the bottom

durability Owns it Field Company No. 10 Skillet Follow Up Review

Cites durability

4:32 objects Chef Matt speaking on I Want To Cook Chef
I see a lot of like nonstick pans that are all scratched up and they just they're really janky pass on those you're not going to want to cook on those nor are you going to want those in your house

Two judgements rest on this sentence:

  • recommendation
  • durability cites coating (against)

Thrift Store Cookware | What To Buy, What To Avoid

0:30 objects Isaac Morton speaking on House Beautiful Collectors
The cast iron market wasn't really delivering what it had a hundred years ago, and there wasn't a good reason for that. And most modern cast iron is rough and has this sandy surface, it's difficult to clean and it's not quite as enjoyable to cook on.

Three judgements rest on this sentence:

How Smithey Ironware Makes Cast Iron Skillets I Beautiful Things I HB