The French National Assembly on Thursday unanimously adopted a bill aimed at restricting the manufacture and sale of products containing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — also known as PFAS or “forever chemicals.” The MPs, backed by the government, voted to exclude kitchen utensils from the scope of the text.
Thanks to an intense lobbying push, manufacturers of frying pans and saucepans — including the SEB group, which owns Tefal — are exempt from this ban under the proposed law penned by French Green MPs.
Majority groups initially tried to delay the ban on kitchen utensils until 2030 — a timetable refused by the French Green MPs who instead suggested an exemption until 2026.
Stainless + cast iron is all you need.
I’d add carbon steel pans as well. They’re the good tradeoff between stainless and cast iron.
I like cast iron mainly for baking (Dutch oven, etc) and carbon steel for pans.
Yeah, I do that too. Cast iron is amazing for stuff like that.
It was on Kickstarter which makes me a bit nervous, but I found a set of carbon steel clad pans from a new company called Strata Cookware. They’re the weight of something like an All-Clad but with a carbon steel top sheet. Pretty excited to try them out.
I prefer to have all 3: stainless, cast iron and carbon steel. Personally I have a carbon steel wok that does double duty as a frying pan.
Cast iron doesn’t like dishwashers though
You’re not wrong, but it only takes 30-60 seconds to clean by hand. Scrub with chainmail and water then a light wash with a non-lye soap like dawn to remove excess oils. The soap isn’t even necessary if you use really hot water then wipe it clean with a rag.
True but needing all kinds of special treatment and equipment just for one pan type is a pain
Once your pan is seasoned it takes so little care. Just give it a fast hand wash like any non stick pan. Dish soaps used to be bad but these days they’re gentle enough to not be a problem.
To me, what is a pain is having to buy a pan every couple years. Or getting a new non stick pan and having roommates use metal on it when I specifically said not to.
The durability of cast iron makes it less fuss, imo.
Yeah the durability is the greatest thing. I can use metal spatulas and scrape away. No need to baby it, it’s literally a hunk of metal. I don’t even give a shit how the seasoning looks anymore, if food doesn’t stick badly it’s all good.
It doesn’t need any special treatment. I season my cast iron pans no more than a few times a year, and usually only because I did something dumb like making tomato sauce in it instead of using the stainless steel pan. There is a minimum skill level, but the bar isn’t high at all.
I don’t even remember the last time I seasoned mine. Definitely not even once a year.
People overdo it to be honest. I just stopped caring and started using dish soap. Zero problems whatsoever. So it’s not more work than a regular pan.
I’ve hit upon the technique of just storing my cast iron pan in the oven. After using it, I wash it gently with dish soap to get the food/oil off, dry it, and put it back in the oven, maybe with a light wipe of oil. That way, it gets seasoned incidentally every time I bake something. It’s super easy, and stays nice and shiny now.
You don’t need any special equipment. Chain mail is useful to have in general though (not just for cast iron), but not mandatory.
There are people who go crazy with cast iron pans, seasoning and whatnot. I have had the same cast iron pan for around 30 years and I washed it by hand like all the other dishes before I had a dishwasher and now I wash it in a dishwasher, it works the same all these years.
Imo pans just take too much space in the dishwasher so I’ll just wash them immediately after use. Takes like 30 seconds because the pan still being hot helps immensely. After drying I like to oil them, just because I like how they look oiled, literally no other reason.
You really do need to make sure that you’re drying it, though. If the dishwasher doesn’t do a good job of drying it, and you don’t hand-dry it, you will rust cast iron. And, yes, you can strip some of the surface off and get a rusted piece of cast iron back into shape, but it’s a pain in the rear. Stainless steel doesn’t care if it sits around with water on it.
Going from non-stick to stainless steel buys me not having to worry about using metal utensils. It’s gonna last a lot longer.
But going from stainless steel to cast iron doesn’t really buy me much. I mean, cast iron tends to be thick, but if you want, you can get thick-walled cooking implements that have a stainless steel surface too.
The only thing I can think of that cast iron buys relative to stainless steel is maybe if someone wants some extra iron added to their food – something that might matter more for women who are menstruating – but if one wants iron supplements, I mean, one can just take iron supplements, and that gives more control than the amount coming out of cookware.