Huge (Really HUGE) Farberware Score!

[danemodsandy]

I was beginning to wonder if I was ever going to own one of these, because they're HTF, plus they fetch a fairly good price on eBay, and then there's shipping....

It is a Farberware twelve-inch, five-quart saute pan - a very large size that was not common in the '80s when this item was made. This is an aluminum-clad piece, made like most Farberware was until recently.

Since Farberware always took a "modular" approach to its aluminum-clad line, the pan uses the stick handle and helper handle from the electric skillet; the regular Farberware handle would not have been strong enough to support this pan when full. I have seen it with both the high dome lid and the flat regular lid.

I found it for next to nothing, and I thought at first maybe that was too high a price, because it was in really, really bad shape. It was missing the stick handle, it was absolutely filthy, and it had a dent.

Well, one stick handle (from my Farberware parts stash), a half-can of oven cleaner, some straightening and a lot of elbow grease later, here it is! It is now very clean and quite presentable. My parts stash also had the flat regular lid, so I have both lids for it; the high-dome lid is not needed for everything and it's a bit harder to clean.

By next week, I should have time to do a braised pork roast in it, something I have not been able to do since moving to Waterloo. I'll let everyone know how it turns out.

This was a real find!

 

[polkanut]

Very nice Sandy.  I'm sure that once you finished cleaning it up it looks nearly new again.

 

[perc-o-prince]

Looks nice, and nice job cleaning it up!

Chuck

 

[danemodsandy]

Tim:

I would not say "new," I would say "presentable." It's very clean now, and that's the main thing with me. You can see where the dent was, and some minor scarring from harsh cleaning pads. Still better than not having this HTF piece!

Your next visit here, perhaps we can do a pork roast in it. Pork roast and noodles, yes? My late partner used to say that my pork roast tasted more like pork than pork does!

However, he and I used to enjoy the pork roast with Brussels sprouts, which are not everyone's thing.

 

[frigilux]

Great find, Sandy, and no one would guess you found the pan in terrible shape. It looks great. Glad you had a handle for it in your stash. That domed lid gives the pan so much flexibility. My vote goes with Brussels sprouts to accompany your pork roast!

 

[appnut]

Congratulations Sandy!!! Looks beautiful. You're alwaays too hard on yourself, the perfectioninst you are. Sit back and appreciate the hard work you've done here as well as the rest of your acquisitions.

 

[danemodsandy]

Not A Perfectionist!

The members here who have met me can attest to that, LOL!

I wish the photos gave a better impression of the size of this thing - it is ginormous.

 

[frigilux]

I'm not too familiar with Farberware, although my stepfather came with a large, gleaming saucepan (3 or 4 quart) in the mid-1970s. At any rate, a question: Can Farberware go in the oven or are the handles not made for that? Your deep saute pan with the domed lid would be perfect for roasts started on the cooktop and finished in the oven.[this post was last edited: 1/10/2015-20:14]

 

[danemodsandy]

Eugene:

Farberware claimed that the Bakelite handles on its cookware were oven-safe up to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

I personally don't do that, but Farberware always said it was okay.

 

[appnut]

Sandy, I had a pretty good incline as to its true size.  I've seen modern 12" 5-qt. sauté pans&#92 in real life. 

 

[alr2903]

Real nice Sandy... but Child,  we call that a chicken fryer. 

 

[lordkenmore]

Nice find! And it really looks good in the photos. While it may not be perfect in person, I bet it looks better than a lot of the cookware I see at Goodwill! ("You mean someone actually USED this Superfund eligible pan? To make something they'd eat? YUCK!!!!")

 

[lordkenmore]

Re: Farberware handles in the oven

I don't know anything about Farberware, but I have to admit a certain paranoia about using something like that in the oven. Even when the maker says it's safe up to X degrees.

This isn't relevant for Farberware, but I remember my mother having this sort of problem with pot roasts. She used an iron pan for browning on the stove, and cooking in the oven. That part was fine. But the lid came off her Club aluminum dutch oven. That lid had a wood knob (not the original knob), and I remember her carefully unscrewing the knob every time she assembled the lid/pan to go into the oven. It's amazing, probably, that the knob never wore out.

I'm not sure I'd do this with Farberware, even if it were possible. By the time all the pieces are removed and then put back on, any time/effort savings with using one pan would be pretty much killed. (And this is coming from someone who--shudder--has to handwash--shudder--all his dishes.)

 

[washdaddy]

Congratulations on a great score Sandy!!!

I'm sure that your pork roast will be a delectable culinary delight when you finally decide to make it. Just be sure to have a someone at the ready to lend you a hand when taking that pan out of the oven. It certainly won't be light with that kind of capacity. The sheer size of your pan means you could easily prepare enough for an army of people at once.

BON APPETIT!

 

[danemodsandy]

Rick:

My pork roast is done as a top-of-the-stove braise, no oven roasting involved. The pan will never leave the burner when full.

And there will be pork for the masses and multitudes - I will have to give half of it to neighbors and I'll still have a freezer full.

 

[danemodsandy]

John:

I don't really trust the 350 degree recommendation for Bakelite, either. I spent much of the '80s in the housewares biz, and I can't tell you how many damaged Bakelite handles I saw. Many were due to abuse, of course. But there were quite a few that weren't so easily explained.

I have a lot of Corning Ware Cornflower, in large sizes, and that is what I use in the oven, because it is a perfect material for the purpose. In fact, I like it better than the Le Creuset I used to have, and had to give up due to its weight being too much for my arthritic elbows. The Creuset took a lot of babying to keep its good looks. Corning Ware comes up sparkling with minimal effort.

 

[lordkenmore]

I have to say I'm not sure I'd be wild about Le Creuset in the oven. I don't have arthritic issues, but I'd prefer to keep things light and easily handled when dealing with 400 degree temperatures. Small Le Creuset isn't bad, but the large pieces feel heavy enough when picking them up in the store. I don't want to think about holding a 4 qt. iron pot, filled with a stew or something, held out as one does to put it into the oven.

One thing I have wondered, in fact, is the fixation on "oven safe" that is used with so much cookware. Perhaps it's marketing. Perhaps it's customers who want it (one less pan to wash--even though most people use a dishwasher these days). While I suppose it doesn't hurt having options for multiple uses, it seems more practical to use something in the oven that is well designed for the task.

Above I commented about how my mother used her dutch oven lid with pot roasts, after removing the knob. One thing that memory makes me wonder about: I know she had some oven specific dishes, including some CorningWare. Wouldn't it have been a better idea to just use one of those in the oven, since it would be easier than removing a knob, struggling to remove a long handled pan after it had been sitting in the oven two hours, and lid would also fit perfectly? Although there may have been some reason I wasn't aware of. Although part of it might have been just the fact that when my mother started doing pot roasts somewhat regularly, she was trying to get back in touch with her roots. And a cast iron skillet with some sort of lid was, I think, what Grandma did for pot roasts.

 

[danemodsandy]

John:

With a lot of classically-trained housewives - meaning that their knowledge was passed down to them from their mothers and grandmothers - there's a huge reluctance to change recipes, methods, procedures, etc.

The reason is: They often don't know why things work, only that they do. If a certain pot roast recipe cooked in a certain way in a certain pan pleases Hubby, it gets repeated. Pretty soon Suzy Homemaker is so wedded to that recipe and that procedure and that pan that she literally cannot conceive of changing a single bit of it. Would it be as good? Would she be "wasting" a roast on an experiment that leaves Hubby cold? She does not know, and that uncertainty breeds rote repetition.

This is not nearly so prevalent today as it once was, because today's cooks - male as well as female - are exposed to more information and more varied techniques. But in the days when women literally earned their livings by pleasing husbands, it was kind of critical not to P.O. Mr. Breadwinner.

 

[lordkenmore]

Sandy

Your explanation makes a lot of sense.

In my mother's case, when she got onto her pot roast kick 20-some years ago, pleasing a husband wasn't an issue (my father had left her). Even when my father was around, it didn't seem to be a huge issue if he wasn't 100% wild about dinner occasionally.

But I wouldn't be surprised if she didn't have the attitude of method X works for meal y, so why try anything new? And there is a certain advantage of doing things the same way--one gets to know the process, and the quirks. But the huge pitfall: some approaches may evolve due to circumstances of a specific time and kitchen, and other times/places may make that approach workable, but not the best idea. Grandma might well have used cast iron originally because there was no CorningWare available. But CorningWare might have been a better choice once it was around.