Fat Guy

Ever since I took that press trip to Ayrshire Farm in Virginia, I've been convinced that the solution to confusion about these issues is the Certified Humane label. It seems to me that, for a consumer looking to support humane practices, but not in a position to research or understand every element of every producer's approach, the Certified Humane label is as comprehensive as can be. For example, with respect to pork: That's good enough for me, in theory, because I trust that the Certified Humane people have already gone ahead and researched and conscientiously debated the issues much more thoroughly than I ever would. The problem is that if you're looking for Certified Humane pork in the marketplace you're not likely to find it, and what you will find tends to be super expensive. The only product I've found in mainstream supermarkets at a reasonable price point with a Certified Humane label is Murray's Chicken. If beef, pork and lamb equivalents present themselves where I shop, and the prices aren't crazy, I'll buy them. Otherwise, I'm not likely to pay more for one product than another just because it says something like "free range" on the label. McWilliams, Pollan and others have demonstrated conclusively that, without more, you can't conclude much from a claim like "free range." Certainly not enough to justify paying more for a product.

Yes I think it helps to distinguish between truly abrasive scrubbing with metal and chemicals, and scrubbing with something like a Scotch-Brite scrubbing sponge. That being said I scrub my cast iron with metal after every session.

Then you're cooking in a dirty pan. I always scrub mine and so do restaurants.

Seasoning and scrubbing works with cast iron.

I see similar discoloration in places on the Beacon pan. To my eye it's a question of one pan evidencing a lot more of it than the other. One possibility is that the whole seasoning thing is a crock. That certainly seems to be what you're concluding based on theory. It is admittedly the more likely answer. Everything I know about cookware basics says seasoning aluminum is a crock. Then again, watching the dinner service at Beacon was an "everything I thought about aluminum was wrong" moment. So I'm more open-minded at the moment. Another possibility is perhaps something like: Aluminum becomes seasoned over time, as it's used repeatedly for cooking. This seasoning, which does not necessarily appear as black or brown but is more along the lines of a sealant, makes the pan less reactive, gives better release properties, etc. A well-seasoned aluminum pan can be used for tomato sauce, berry sauce, et al., no problem. One way to season aluminum is to cook in it over a period of years. The other way is to do what Lincoln Smallwares and Globe Equipment say to do and then rub the brown stuff off with elbow grease but without abrasive scouring. Sounds unlikely, but I'm going to pursue the possibility.

It doesn't seem like a good idea to me either, but neither does reducing berry sauce all afternoon in an aluminum pot. I'm trying to take an open-minded, scientific approach here, and leave behind some of my preconceptions.

I scrubbed very well, but can still scrub with extreme elbow grease and probably accomplish more. Most likely, though, I'll need to escalate to a heavier duty scrubbing sponge. Right now I'm using the blue one: http://www.3m.com/us/home_leisure/scotchbr...ng_sponges.html I probably need to acquire green or purple. So that experiment will need to wait for my next shopping trip.

I think I've actually visited that place, but not on castration day and I can't remember whether the pigs had nose rings. I wonder how we could find out. More to the point, it's not like you ever see on packaging a checklist like "__ nose rings, __ castration without anesthesia, __ spaying without anesthesia, __ confinement for __ months." I think the salient point of the article is that a "free range" claim doesn't begin to end the discussion of humane treatment. Me, if I'm going to pay a lot more for meat in order to guarantee humane treatment, I'd rather only do that with the knowledge that I'm actually paying for humane treatment.

I wouldn't say it looks nothing like them. It's just that the discoloration is much more pronounced. Probably if I scrub harder, or with the next level up of scrubbing sponge, it will look more like this, where the discoloration is less overt but the pan still looks quite different from a new one: No, but I'm not sure what that demonstrates. I mean, I used butter, in the same amount as I'd have used in any other non-non-stick pan. Presumably the butter keeps it from sticking, not anything about the nature of the pan.

#3: Seasoning I have no idea whether there's any legitimacy to the claim that bare aluminum cookware should be seasoned. And I have no idea what seasoning does in this context. Nonetheless, I seasoned my fry pan. I washed it with soapy water. Poured in a little corn oil. Spread it around with a paper towel. Heated until colored and smoking. By the way you can see how soft aluminum is from this shot of the bottom of the pan. This is just from a little moving around on the burner grates. I washed thoroughly with soapy water and a scrubbing sponge, dried, and repeated two more times. Then I fried an egg. Then I ate the egg. I have no idea what I learned from this, if anything.

I've had inconsistent results with potatoes. Sometimes they get worse with time, sometimes better. I've never focused enough to observe whether it relates to type of potato or what.

I make this mistake all the time. I can't stop myself.

I'm totally with you. In the "million bags" topic we discussed a related sub-peeve: using too many bags. Occasionally I come across a great old-school bagger, but it's rare. Usually, I do a much better job, and I'm not even that good at it. In general, the skill sets of retail employees have declined dramatically over the past few decades. Cashiers are often barely literate, so instead of numbers cash registers in fast-food restaurants have a picture of a hamburger on one button, a picture of french fries on another, and in most other retail establishments they use scanners. Not that scanners are bad -- they're great for inventory -- but the people who program the scanners aren't terribly competent either so scanners turn out to make plenty of mistakes too.

I'd love to know more about this whole line of inquiry. One thing I can say for sure is it's true of most meat. I've had success cooking many kinds of meat without added fat, in several kinds of pans. Soon after you first put it in, it's very sticky, and if you try to move it you'll rip it apart. But eventually it comes completely or mostly unstuck.

If I may, just an observation on weight, I can't believe how much lighter the bare aluminum pan is than all the others. It's like nothing. I'm not sure this makes a difference for a big guy like me in a home-cooking environment, but I can definitely see how a more fragile person, or someone cooking scores of orders a day in a commercial setting, could benefit from a lighter pan. If it works well.

I'm now in the process of seasoning per the Globe Equipment instructions cited earlier.

They're all the same in that they're rated the same by the manufacturer and there are no discernible design differences. There's no special simmer burner or extra-power burner on my range (all four burners have a simmer setting; the DCS burner design uses two concentric rings of gas jets, and when you go to simmer only the inner ring, which is covered with a diffuser, stays lit). I've also never noticed one burner working better or worse than the others, though the spark-starter thing on one of them (front right, which I use the most) can be a little glitchy at times.

Right, for the straight-sided pans we can use formulas if we can get the right numbers to use as variables. The trouble is that I'm having trouble even getting those numbers, especially on the pans where there's no hard line of demarcation between bottom and walls. I'm hoping these measurements don't matter anyway, but if they do I guess I can always circle back and get them later. It's not like the pans are going to shrink.

It's worth looking at the article. There is, for example, a discussion of the use (and non-use) of anesthesia in spaying/neutering.

James McWilliams, the gadfly of food miles, has a piece in Slate about cruelty to free-range pigs. He notes that, while the horrors of factory farming are well documented, free-range pigs often don't have it so well either: they're ringed, castrated spayed and more . . .

Well, I thought #2 would be a list of diameter measurements but, in a flashback to my sucky performance in high-school chemistry, I've found that there's a lot more to measuring than meets the eye. Measuring from the inner lip to the inner lip, assuming I've accurately gauged the widest spot on each pan, they all ring in between 10" and 10.25". However, it's hard to get a ruler down into the pan to measure usable cooking space. The cast-iron skillet seems to have substantially more than the others, though, because of its very steep sides. I haven't measured the height of the sides, which should be easy, but I have no idea how to measure the side angles and curves.

#1: Weight The following are the weights of my 4 pans, weighted on my postal scale: Bare aluminum: 1 lb. 13 oz. Anodized aluminum nonstick: 3 lb. 11.25 oz. Stainless-lined copper: 4 lb. 3.25 oz. Cast iron: 5 lb. 5.7 oz.

On the subway ride home, while getting weird looks for carrying a fry pan, I was thinking about what comparisons to perform. Some comparisons -- measuring, weighing -- can be done with an unlimited number of specimens. Others are probably going to be more precise if I limit the size of the test group to 4, in other words to the number of identical burners that I can run simultaneously. For example, if I want to test how quickly each pan heats and cools, I can get fairly accurate comparative data by doing them all at once (with perhaps a 10-second interval between turning on each burner, to allow for measurement on a rotating basis). Whereas, if I put a fifth pan on after testing the first four, there are variables introduced: the burner grate is already hot, etc. Likewise, if I want to do a test with cooking meat or something, I can run it simultaneously with four pans but not with more. So for the moment I'm probably sticking with my "gang of 4" but if I later get access to a 6-, 8- or 12-burner environment I'll want to add your pan, All-Clad, et al.

The Society is pleased to welcome Local Appetite as an eG Ethics code signatory. Brooklyn-based Jen, who writes the blog, describes it as "a journal of my attempt to hunt for delicious food close to home." Welcome!

In other news, look what I found on the Bowery today for $13.50: It's a 10" aluminum fry pan, made by some Korean company called AMKO. I got it at Bowery Restaurant Supply, so presumably a heck of a lot of restaurants are using this product. I now have 4 different types of fry pan in the roughly 10" size: Clockwise from top left that's 1- cast iron (Benjamin & Medwin), 2- stainless-lined copper (Mauviel), 3- bare aluminum (AMKO), and 4- anodized aluminum with a nonstick coating (Calphalon Commercial). I'll try to do some comparisons.