What Makes Calphalon Cookware Non-stick?

Q: What are you cooking at a temperature of 536F? Calphalon and all the other knockoffs use an anodized surface. Anodizing is an electrolytic process that electrically bonds another, harder metal to the surface of the aluminum. This prevents the aluminum from coming into direct contact with the food. This gives you the superior heat conducting capability of aluminum combined with a hard, non-reactive surface like stainless steel cookware offers. Since the aluminum is not in direct contact with the food, you can cook acid foods, like tomato sauce, that you can't cook in standard aluminum cookware. Since the anodized surface is sort of welded to the aluminum, it is very difficult to damage it such that the aluminum underneath would be exposed. I suppose it is possible however. The non-stick version combines the benefits of non-stick with the anodized surface. Since all non-stick surfaces are subject to being scratched, exposing the metal underneath, standard aluminum non-stick pans will expose the aluminum to the food if the non-stick surface is scratched. With anodized cookware, only the anodized surface is exposed. A couple of weeks ago I bought two Circulon pans because they were on sale (still pretty expensive though!). Circulon cookware is anodized with a non-stick surface. It has ridges in concentric rings on the inside surface. The scientific explanation is that because of the rings most (85%) of the non-stick surface is in the grooves and is protected from abrasion. Only the 15% that is on the top of the ridges is actually exposed to utensils and abrasion. If the surface is scratched the anodized surface still insulates the aluminum underneath. It may be a lot of hooey, but I fell for it and bought them. (sounded pretty scientific to me). They work very well and nothing sticks to it. You can fry an egg with no oil. One warning with all anodized cookware is to NEVER put it in the dishwasher. The high water temperature combined with the harsh detergents can damage the anodized surface.

A: I got a set of Calphalon about 10 years ago and really enjoy using it; this is the non-non-stick, eg: the stuff you can do blackening on, put under the broiler, etc... It is low-stick, not like teflon, but cleans up real well. Recently however, we fried some pototo[e]s and onions up and got a bunch of sticking. So after eating, I simmered water and baking soda in the pan to loosen the material: a major portion of the anodization was removed leaving shiny aluminum! Anyone care to guess why this happened? Must have been chemical action rather than abrasion, but I though anodization was pretty inert. I haven't called Calphalon yet to see what they say or if they'll honor their lifetime warranty... sigh.

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