In article >,
"Bertie Doe" > wrote:

> It's funny, when you see celeb tv cooks being interviewed in their
> workplace, they mostly use stainless pans. Hardly a non-stick surface in
> sight and there has to be a reason for this.

There is. Most non-sticks are made for the low volume use of a home
kitchen. A cheap T-Fal wouldn't last a week in a real restaurant.

But as to what is mostly used, stainless is some, but a hard anodized
aqluminum seams to be more common because its dark pigmentation infused
during the HA process helps hide the discoloration that occurs in heavy
use. A high end non-stick on HA is also common in some situations.
There is a restaurant at Our Lady of the Snows in Belleville, IL that
has an excellent buffet every year during the Way of Lights
(mid-November to the first week of January). At this buffet, they have
a made-to-order pasta station. The pans they use are a commercial grade
HA with a non-stick surface. They do use metal utensils in these pans,
so they go through a set of ten pans twice during the run, but these ten
pans get used up to 16 times per hour, 5 hours a day, 7 days a week,
with two cooks and as needed a busser in there to help wash each pan
between each use. Those $8.95 Farberware pans won't cut it. But they
need the non-stick to allow things to keep moving fast, including
clean-up.

The reason the celeb TV cooks have stainless is that it looks much nicer
on camera. But look at those pans in the background. Many of those
pans never get actually used, but are only there for show, particularly
on Food Network. Even stainless can lose its gleam under the industrial
grade use of a busy restaurant.

And shiny stainless costs more to produce than HA aluminum.

jt