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Comment on YSK You don't need Teflon pans for nonstick

Nick@mander.xyz ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

I think it’s a bit disingenuous to say that any other cookware material outperforms Teflon nonstick, and actually harms the conversation when trying to convince people to switch to an alternative. Nothing is going to beat the nonstick performance a fresh nonstick pan, and that’s perfectly fine. I don’t need a pan so nonstick that I could start an egg in a cold pan with no oil. Well-meaning people run the risk of frustrating less experienced cooks when they assert that they’ll get the exact same or better results from a stainless steel pan, which just isn’t true, especially right from the start. Stainless has plenty of other benefits that make it more than worth the learning curve to use. Sometimes you want some stick, to build fond for a pan sauce. Or you need a pan that can go from stovetop to oven to finish cooking.

This post wasn’t aimed at you specifically, I just wanted to vent at what I feel like has been an uptick in cookware bros flexing their ability to reduce sticking on stainless steel (“I’m so smart I name dropped this little-known thing called the Leidenfrost effect”). I quite like your video and post because they show an alternative way to reduce sticking on stainless that is definitely more forgiving for a beginner than trying to hit a specific temperature range.

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LovableSidekick@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Pointing out inaccuracies and giving countrary opinions are fine, but calling OP disingenuous is calling them dishonest - and you’re not even using it correctly - the term usually implies that they’re playing dumb or innocent.

And this comment genuinely isn’t aimed at you, I’m just venting about people acting like they magically know somebody’s state of mind.

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- Nick@mander.xyz ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  It seems like you’re making the assumption that in saying it’s disingenuous to make the claim, I’m casting some final moral judgment about the OP or their overall trustworthiness. Correct me if I’m wrong about that, you just seem to have taken issue with me potentially accidentally having called OP dishonest. To be clear, I was calling them dishonest (with regards to only the claim they made about their stainless steel pan being more nonstick than a nonstick pan, at least for the scope of my comment). It’s just patently untrue that a stainless steel pan is more nonstick than a Teflon nonstick pan, no matter what you do to the stainless steel pan (except applying a nonstick coating). I don’t have to make any unfounded assumptions about any mental state here. To make the claim requires that you are either innocently misinformed/uninformed or purposely making a misrepresentation about this particular issue.
  
  And, for the record, I’m not assuming that the OP is malicious or intentionally set out to mislead people. It’s exciting to achieve little to no sticking in a stainless steel pan and you want to share that achievement with others, hopefully to encourage them to achieve the same thing. All I did was correct some innocent exaggeration. And if it was malicious, well, at least I still used disingenuous correctly.
  
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Krudler@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
As a wonderful cook, I resent just about every piece of cooking advice. They’re just oft-repeated, poorly-understood concepts.

For example, I love cast iron. It’s my go-to for nearly all my cooking. I cannot stand cast iron people. They think their lump of iron is a baby that needs to be spit polished and pampered like a Fabergé egg. No, you beat the ever-loving hell out of it, abuse it, soak it in water, leave it to rust, abuse it with scouring pads… then you rub a 1/16th tsp of oil on it and get on with life/cooking.

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- Pilferjinx@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  There’s a joy with high crafted tools that you can’t really get with an average equivalent. It usually comes down to comfort and looks. Is it worth it? Depends, I suppose.
  
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  - Krudler@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I’ve cooked every meal from scratch for 5 years
    
    There’s one tool that was worth the $50 and that was a garlic press, the rest was money wasted
    
    It’s much better to understand your tools and buy appropriately, instead of just assuming that lots of money is the answer
    
    That’s my opinion and experience
    
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- AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I agree with both your original comment and the edit, but especially the bit about cast iron. Neglecting mine for an extended period led to uneven patches of seasoning, but when I got round to giving it a proper scrub, it was like hitting a reset button. I’m going to try to be better at basic seasoning/maintenance this time, but the joy of cast iron is knowing that it’s super forgiving if you do mess it up.
  
  Tangential to your edit: I enjoy being able to sharpen knives, but that’s mostly because I’m a nerd who has other tools I need to sharpen anyway, so I already have the stones. Something that I found striking though is that when I was learning how to sharpen knives, I asked if I could practice on various friends’ kitchen knives. Most of them were poor students, so I sharpened many cheap knives, and I was impressed by how well some of the cheaper ones performed compared once they were sharp. They held their edge for surprisingly long too.
  
  I’m quite fond of my Wusthof chef’s knife, which was a bit of an indulgent treat for myself, but I am utterly baffled by the gear acquisition syndrome that so many seem to fall into. It’s not just that prospect of someone who barely cooks buying a $300 knife that perplexes me, but that so many of these people keep acquiring more knives. If they said that collecting knives was just their hobby, and that they were never intending to actually use them, then I’d shrug and say fair enough. That’s pretty rare though — the underlying implication that these people seem to operate under is that the fancy knives make you a better cook (and that the perfect knife will make good cooking into an effortless, joyful endeavour). It’s an odd culture that’s developed.
  
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  - Krudler@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    You’re making some great points
    
    I like that you like sharpening, my grandfather taught me how as well and it’s a pleasure to know how. I have also been surprised how some “bargain basement” cheap ones are higher quality steel than the expensive Henkels, just as one random example
    
    Maybe it’s my fault, but I don’t think so, I think it just revealed a deeper truth to me…
    
    I was given professional chef knives by someone who dropped out of cooking school. I mean, you could just hold the chef knife in your hand for a second and tell you are dealing with a completely “next level” tool
    
    I think I had that knife for all of 5 days before something took a massive chip out of the edge. I suppose a person could argue it was my fault. I really don’t think it was, I think it was just a freak incident. But the timing of it revealed to me that I’m just going to stick with my cheapos. There is too much going on with cooking to have to stress about if my little delicate knife can handle a tap against a pan edge
    
    That chipping incident disabused me of many false notions. I can absolutely acknowledge it made prep quicker, but I did the mental math and realized I’m not going to pamper and baby knives my whole life. I need to be able to have tools that if they break, they go straight in the trash and I just get another one. In the forensic analysis, it’s much cheaper and easier to go that way.
    
    This is for me as a home cook - I can acknowledge if I worked in a professional environment I would need pro tools that I would baby and pamper, but my home kitchen is not the place
    
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- Korhaka@sopuli.xyz ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I went for a cheapish knife, like £20 or so each for a few knives. My thinking was I don’t want the 20 knives in a set for £19.99 that are probably made of stamped aluminium and hollow plastic handles, but by £20 you are getting something good without spending a silly amount of money.
  
  As for the cast iron I won’t deliberately leave mine to rust, but happily use it over a fire and then just wipe off the worst of the soot/ash. But it’s black anyway so no one is going to notice spot buildup. Just remove anything that would easily brush off on other things.
  
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  - Krudler@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I agree with your approach
    
    I think knife sets are a bit of a con job because a good cook really just uses one or two. I’m looking at my knife block and I’m seeing 9 different knives in there, two of them get used. Two… The $5 el-cheapo chef knife and a $1 paring knife. I haven’t used the serrated bread knife in 10 years, because my chef knife is sharp enough to shave my beard
    
    I’m also kind of exaggerating a bit on my prices. Yes I’ve paid $5 or 6 but I time the purchases to be right after Christmas when they’re on clearance. I’d say in “real money” and with recent inflation I’m using about a $35 CAD knife
    
    I also find the pricing of them to be completely arbitrary. I have been gifted knives that should be extraordinarily high quality based on retail price… And found the handles/plugs were falling off, or they were degrading within weeks!
    
    I don’t understand why we live in a world where someone can sell a $500 knife that in terms of manufacture and material cost, is almost indistinguishable from a no-frills budget one. And in many cases, conspicuously worse in every measurement!
    
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    Korhaka@sopuli.xyz ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Been looking at sharpening stones a bit today, genuinely wonder if I could instead get 2 slate roof tiles and grind them against each other until the surface is flat enough to use to sharpen a knife. Would cost almost nothing
    
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endeavor@sopuli.xyz ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
World is a better place when we dont buy pans that are designed to fail in a few years, thrown away and replaced just cause humans are too lazy to heat up the pan.

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- Nick@mander.xyz ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  You won’t find any disagreement from me there. I just think that when you set the expectation too high (stainless steel can actually be more nonstick than Teflon), people will give up and just go back to nonstick pans when they can’t achieve those results.
  
  Regarding dishes that are solely the domain of Teflon, I think it definitely has a place for dishes that already have a high bar for execution. A perfect French omelette is hard enough on a nonstick that adding another layer of heat management puts it out of reach for most people. But like you said, there’s not much that I’d use Teflon for, so I just don’t have one after switching to induction.
  
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  - ChexMax@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I’m glad I am reading your comments. I am that kitchen novice. And so is my husband. We’ve been trying to move away from Teflon since we had a baby, and are struggling to make stainless steel worth the extra time it takes to clean. I’ve been feeling very frustrated that despite trying to do the heat it up and use oil thing, it’s still awful, and I figured either we’re dumb and bad or everyone online is just lying. We just went back to Teflon, because people online say it should be perfectly non stick and then also that you can only clean the stainless steel with a soft cloth. It’s hell.
    
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    Nick@mander.xyz ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    First of all, congratulations on the baby! :) If you don’t mind me asking, what sorts of dishes are you struggling to make on stainless steel?
    
    I’m going to be presumptuous here and make a few suggestions, so feel free to push back if you’ve tried some of these things and they haven’t worked. If you do still want to transition to stainless, it’ll be easiest to start by only doing it bit by bit, rather than all at once. Dishes that naturally contain some acidic element, like a tomato sauce
    
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Korhaka@sopuli.xyz ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Got 2 cast iron pans, one probably needs a good reseasoning sometime but the other is really good right now. Possibly not as good as brand new Teflon, but how long does Teflon remain good as new? Mine has long passed the age at which Teflon should be disposed of too, so how much less pan waste am I making by using cast iron?

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- Nick@mander.xyz ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I’d posit that your well-loved cast iron looks even better than new. For me, moving off nonstick pans was about sustainability (and money waste, who wants to buy a 2 year subscription to cooking?), but I can’t get over how beautiful some cookware gets just from being used. The patinas on cast iron/carbon steel pans reflect the dedication of their owners to a craft, which I’ll take any day over a colorful pan whose surface flakes just from looking at it.
  
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