Cookware Got Worse on Purpose: Who Owns Pyrex and All-Clad Now(worseonpurpose.com) |
Cookware Got Worse on Purpose: Who Owns Pyrex and All-Clad Now(worseonpurpose.com) |
The internet is becoming a joke.
Wish I had a dollar for every time I heard this construct from Claude Code.
I appreciate that it’s minimal in functionality, but times changes and slop infiltrates every single platform, HN no exception
I'm using it to avoid enshittified brands in the future.
Do we know how many HN accounts are automated bots? Probably over half at least. And moderation doesn’t do anything about it (for example, there’s an account called cindyllm that posts random comments and gets downvoted and flagged but the account lives on). Upvotes are probably nearly automated.
An interesting subject is how to differentiate borosilicate glass from tempered glass, It turns out to be surprisingly tricky, at least in a home kitchen setting. You could break it, easy but now you are can't use the dish. Color(blueish vs more clear) turns out to be a unfaithful test. There are ways to check the index of refraction(IOR) with oil, but it turns out the IOR of borosilicate and soda-lime overlap. I suspect the polarized light test to identify tempered glass stress would work, but that requires getting the polorizing filters and knowing what to look for. I sort of wish there was a requirement to stamp the formula right into the glass.
But I think AllClad has switched to sealed-rims on their pans, thus making them truly dishwasher-safe?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/22/french-people-...
Also anything cast iron like Lodge and Le Creuset for example are usually going to last generations. When I used to sell them, I used the line "You are buying heirlooms not land fill".
I’ve started doing a lot more research when buying things because of this. It seems like every pot and pan does this, not just All-Clad.
I got some stainless steel pans about 6 months ago. They were advertised as dishwasher safe, but the fine print recommended against it.
For example: every sale of a brand or a company has to go through a government committee (bribes, kickbacks, friction...). Restrictions on product changes: the new owner isn't allowed to improve the products, or stop producing older products when newer ones sell better, even if the newer ones are better. Can't shift manufacturing to China? Can't shift it out of the U.S.? How do you get such laws to apply everywhere (like Italian or French companies selling out to China)?
The least harmful solution I can see is publicizing this B.S. and then having consumers speak with their wallets and dropping those brands.
We've had to do that with so many brands. Aveeno used to make an oat and almond body wash that was amazing. It really helped the skin heal, feel soft, and still cleaned well. They got bought out. Boom... ammonium laurel sulfate... no oat, no almond, just fragrance, just like every other cheap body wash, and now it was bad for the skin. Same for their shave gel, same for dozens of other products.
I don't know how we consumers stop it short of buying the product and not the brand. I'm skeptical of government being able to do anything about this phenomenon that isn't much worse overall.
But I’d also like to make it unprofitable to plunder well-established brands. It seems like a form of dishonesty, to sell an intentionally inferior product under a brand that was previously quality. Consumers eventually figure it out and move elsewhere, but the pirates have already cashed out by then.
Heavy isn’t bad, we could all do with a bit of exercise. Easier to clean and maintain I disagree with, if you’re willing to do a bit of work up front.
But, uh, I have All Clad pots and pans and still like them. The bottoms warped on a couple so I replaced them with other brands.
In general they hold up well when hand-washed.
The handles are terrible though. Maybe it's a UX nudge to always use a pot holder?
As it seems there's to be lots of consolidation, which is kind of antithetical to the free market and competition. If governments (?) better resisted consolidation and conglomerates I think a lot of this enshittification would be slowed down because of actual competition.
I prefer stamped steel, lighter, stronger, won't break. But it does turn cooking in it more like cooking in a wok, faster to heat up faster to cool down. Where as cast iron is better for staying the course with a steady temp.
But the thing I like best about both is the maintainability of the pan, When I commit a sin against cooking and burn the living hell out of the poor thing, I can sit down for an hour of penance with the wire wheel and steel wool to strip the mistake out and then resurface the pan to it's nearly non-stick surface. I love having a surface I can repair with just the tools found in my kitchen.
A well-equipped kitchen will have both... and a Dutch oven, and...
My grandmother isn’t going to be using a 12” Lodge cast iron skillet no matter how much exercise she gets.
Also well seasoned cast iron is dishwasher safe, there is very little you can do to kill a cast iron pan.
If you don't mind waiting half an hour for it to heat up. (semi-/s)
There are plenty of times where you do not need or want the heat capacity of cast iron, and it's actually a 'con' for the dish. Never mind that you don't really want to cook anything that's acidic (e.g., tomatoes) in it.
Certainly having cast iron in your tool box isn't a bad idea, but stainless steal has all sorts of other advantages. And if you want something less sticky but still responsive, there's also carbon steal.