THE COMPANY
Cristel (pronounced kriss-TELL) traces its lineage to the Japy (pronounced like zyeah-PEE) company of France, a major manufacturer of domestic goods such as kitchenware and watches.1
NOTE: This product line was discontinued many years ago.
THE COMPANY
In 1897, Clarence Charles Hobart started the Hobart Electric Manufacturing Company (Troy, Ohio). The company sold motorized coffee mills, meat grinders, and (starting in 1908) stand mixers for commercial bakeries.
In 1919, after World War I, Hobart formed the KitchenAid division, which produced smaller-scale stand mixers for residential customers. Hobart continued to sell non-residential products under the Hobart brand. The overall company remained profitable and independent for decades, occasionally adding new product lines to the KitchenAid brand, such as dishwashers.
THE COMPANY
Culina is a small business in San Diego that imports Chinese kitchenware for sale in the USA. Culina has been aggressively marketing on Amazon lately. This review of this pan is going to be a cautionary tale about why you shouldn’t always take product descriptions at face value.
THE PRODUCT BEING REVIEWED
Today, we’re going to look at the Culina 12 Inch Fry Pan Tri-ply Bonded 18/10 Stainless Steel Cookware with Lid, Silver, Dishwasher safe
THE COMPANY
Cuisinart (pronounced “KWEEZ-in-art”) is a subsidiary of the Conair Corporation, which is perhaps better known for hair dryers. But don’t let that fool you; Cuisinart has been around since 1971.1 The short story is that Carl Sontheimer started Cuisinart in 1971 after visiting France and seeing semi-automated food preparation machines. He reversed-engineered a machine and added a feeding tube. His creation, dubbed a “food processor,” was a success. Cuisinart subsequently expanded into choppers in 1986. Sontheimer sold the company in 1989 for $60 million, which was re-sold to Conair Corporation later that year. Under Conair’s management, Cuisinart expanded its offerings to encompass virtually everything kitchen-related, from bakeware to wafflemakers.
THE PRODUCT BEING REVIEWED
Today, we’re going to look at the Cuisinart Multiclad Pro (aka MCP or MultiClad Professional)
Zwilling–the new owner of Demeyere–loves to rebrand its cookware, which is why we now have three nearly-identical variants of Demeyere Industry5.
As of July 2016, Demeyere also sells a Sur La Table exclusive called Demeyere Silver7 which is the same thing as Demeyere Atlantis and Proline, except with uglier lids and handles and double-walled (i.e., slightly better insulated) lids a la the Demeyere John Pawson line. The Demeyere Silver7 cladded (not disc-base) pans also have rims sealed with stainless steel. This means that there is no exposed aluminum layer at the rim of the pan. In theory this means you can use even the harshest dishwasher detergents with these pans and not have the aluminum layer eaten away by the detergent. But it’s not clear how big of a problem that really is, because many people have used cladded pans with exposed aluminum for years in dishwashers and been fine. (As of 2023, Demeyere makes Atlantis pieces the same way with protected rims just like Silver7, anyway.)
Also, Demeyere Aurora is NOT Industry5. Aurora has rivets and does not have Silvinox. Basically you’re just getting the thicker core (3mm total thickness compared to 2.6mm for All-Clad Stainless) and nothing else.
Demeyere also makes KitchenAid Professional 7-Ply Stainless Steel 10-Piece Cookware Set – Stainless Steel
which is made in Belgium and a clone of Demeyere Atlantis (reviewed here) except for a few differences: the handles and edges are slightly differently shaped, the capacities are slightly different (e.g., KitchenAid’s version is a 3.5 quart saute pan instead of 2.6 or 4.2 quarts), and the KitchenAid pieces have helper handles. Also, the skillets in the 7-ply KitchenAid line are 3mm thick and are thus effectively the same as Demeyere Industry5/Zwilling Sensation/Demeyere 5-Plus and NOT the 4.8mm of Demeyere Prolines (aka Atlantis Gold 5-star). Lastly, the KitchenAids are priced higher than Demeyere and available only as the aforementioned 10-piece set or as a 10 inch skillet
Other companies play a similar rebranding game. All-Clad TK (named after Chef Thomas Keller) is the same thing as All-Clad Copper Core and D5 except dressed differently: the handles curve more gently, the Copper Core pieces are not gouged out to expose the copper near the base of the cookware, and the lids are lollipop-style (discs with flat handles) which is more traditional and allows the use of the same lid on multiple cookware pieces of similar-but-different diameter–but which many people hate because condensation drips down from the overhand of the lid.
