Celebrating Le Creuset

DEBORAH CROMBIE:  One hundred years ago this year, a couple of Belgian entrepeneurs, one an expert in cast iron, the other an expert in glass-based vitreous enamel, built a foundry in northeastern France to produce their latest innovation, enamel-coated cast iron cookware.

Le Creuset cookware was an immediate hit in Europe, but it wasn't until the 1950s that it began to trickle into the US market. In the 1960s, the growth of Pottery Barn on the East Coast and Williams Sonoma on the West Coast introduced the colorful cookware to an even bigger market, and as Le Creuset brought out ever more colors and products, it became the darling of collectors as well as of serious cooks.

I have to say that I was a late adopter. I started out my just-out-of-college kitchen with a couple of hand-me-down Paul Revere pots (remember those?) and maybe some aluminum Faberware. Then I discovered Cuisinart stainless pots and pans, which I still own and still use. But it was my mom who started my love affair with Le Creuset, although not in the way you might expect. 

For some time after my parents were no longer able to keep up their big house, they lived in a nice apartment complex. My mom was famous for her daily walks, and one morning she spied a large cardboard box, open, sitting next to the trash dumpsters, so of course she had a peek. Inside was a set of brand sparkling new, black Le Creuset cookware. She picked it up (ouch! Le Creuset is heavy!) and carried it back to their apartment, then called me to see if I'd like to have it. Of course I said yes, and we had a lot of fun speculating as to why someone would have left hundreds of dollars of new cookware by the trash. Wedding gift, and they both hated black? Wedding gift, and the bride left the groom holding the cookware?

At any rate, I was hooked, and not too long after that I discovered that there was a Le Creuset outlet store not far from where I live. Color fiend that I am, I started with the Dutch oven that matched my apple-green kitchen, and added more colorful pieces. The black set was passed on to my daughter, as it's much better suited to her neutral kitchen. My pieces live on my cooktop, as you can see from the first photo above. Partly because they are in constant use, partly because I just like looking at them.

However, I can't call myself a collector, because these three pieces and an aubergine grill pan are all I have room for. Serious Le Creuset fans build entire kitchens around their collections! It is tempting, when the company comes out with some lucious new color, but I just have to turn my face away and say "No room at the inn."

Le Creuset cast iron cookware is still made in that foundry in northeast France, although some of their other products are made overseas.

Reds and readers, What is your cookware of choice, and what did you start out with in your kitchen?