Designed to endure
I’ve entered a new phase in my life. Tonight, I waited for and watched a program where they reviewed roasting pans.
To be fair, cooking is one of those things that has to be done on a regular basis. Miss a day and someone will complain. Miss two days and you had better be out of town. That’s intense. When the decision has been made to move beyond microwave dinners and canned soup, the choice of tools starts to move up in the list of important topics.
I started my life with an old aluminum dipper. You can ruin a lot of meals that way. Burnt rice. Burnt fish cakes. Etc. I graduated to an oversize pressure cooker that my father had brought home from some weekend trip to the city, and learned that anything can be forced into a bland stew. Turnips will add colour.
And then I got married. With the contract came some pretty fine cookware, including some heavy pots made by a little known (to me) firm named Le Creuset. Twenty odd years later, I still swear by them (and at them, should I forget to tuck in my toes when yanking one out of storage). No hot spots. Easy to clean. Resistant to rookie efforts (my three sons are still noobs).
This evening, the gang over at Radio Canada put large (think “hide two chickens inside” large) enamel roasting pans to the test. The Chinese knock-off, (marketed under the label Remi Olivier) that we added to the collection several years ago didn’t win the gold medal, nor did it deserve to. We bought that one to fill a need for a certain volume, without busting the budget. Le Creuset still won.
Paderno may shine on my kitchen counter, but when it comes time to roast in the oven, enamel over iron wins hand down.
