Goodbye to Gas Stoves
For Vox Rebecca Leber has an interview with Jon Kung on his thoughts for kitchens changing from natural gas ranges to induction ranges. As I did spent quite a bit of time in kitchens, I only personally used gas ranges. Any conversation about whether or not to use electric of any kind was immediately dismissed. Mr. Kung addresses the reason why, and I feel he is very much correct about it:
Any argument or reluctance to adopt induction seems to come from a refusal to change and possibly an old toxic masculine perspective, where it’s, “Oh, I want to cook with fire, fire is part of our job.”
I’ve never heard any argument for gas that really makes sense from a professional standpoint except maybe for initial investment and cost. But otherwise, any kind of romance of cooking doesn’t come from a place of logic. It comes from a place of nostalgia, which is not really how to run a business.
Furthermore, he makes a point that I literally never considered until I read it:
The heat is uncomfortable. It’s almost like disregard for the comfort of workers the way that kitchen life here is just accepted. You’re supposed to suffer for your art and for your craft here, and the open flame cooking is just one of the components of that.
If we ever got a break at all, I would run downstairs just to change a T-shirt because one of them was so soaked that you literally could wring through it. We would get that sweaty depending on how much the restaurant cares to put in the appropriate ventilation. We’d go to the walk-in coolers and freezers and we’d be steaming off of our skin simply because we’re so hot.
This makes immense sense to me. Elsewhere in the interview, he explains how a pan is heated using natural gas versus the magnetic system in an induction system, but the difference is - with an induction system you are heating your cooking vessel and nothing else. With gas, on the other hand, there is a terrific amount of heat generated that is wasted from the actual act of heating up what is being cooked, and that waste goes into the ambient air, where the person cooking has to continue to be in.
I’ve been cooking primarily with cast iron on an induction stove top for a few years, and I think it is just fine. Still feels a little strange to sauté against a flat surface instead of the gas burners.