Made In Cookware Pan Set—Welcome To The Problem Dome
WIRED—January 25, 2018
My sister Gina is a fantastic cook who does not suffer crappy cookware gladly. Her pans are battle-tested All Clads that have been roughed up over the years, but they take the abuse she dishes out with a shrug. Once, though, I noticed damage to a T-Fal pan of hers that wasn’t up to the task; the bottom of the pan had a bit of a dome shape to it, meaning hot oil within the pan pooled around the outer rim but did not cover the higher center. Because of this, the food in the middle of the pan cooked at one temperature while food in the oil around the edge cooked at another. I like to imagine her discovering the fault with that pan and sending it flying out her back door and into the yard, where it would be put to use in the sand box.
The pans from a new company called Made In promise US-made, premium-quality cookware. The website claims that its direct-to-consumer sales model allows it to offer steep discounts for that quality, citing an example of a $69 pan from Made In which would cost $150 at a typical retailer.
It’s a hefty claim. You can buy a 10-inch All Clad fry pan for $150, but at this point you might guess why I started this story by mentioning that doming (aka “concavity”) issue. It was a problem I thought I was picking up on when I first started using the Made In pans. I needed to verify whether these pans were domed, and if so, how badly. It was a problem to attack with a feeler gauge.
See if it feels right to you, and read the story here in WIRED.