The Information Super-Frog

Eight years ago in this journal, I recounted how I had been cooking with glass pots dating back to about the first Reagan administration, until they all gradually broke. Further discussion revealed stories of glass cookware spontanious exploding!

And now, an update via techfragments.com: Exploding Pyrex Cookware Mystery Solved. It seems the problem was with a change in the formula in the 1990s.

The story of Corning Visions glass cook ware (see previous post) gets more interesting and bizarre, from a thread on Ellen's Kitchen site:

"I messed up on a few things like the very large Visonware pots, and a few have been broken and finding them turns out to be very hard. I love that stuff and never did understand why they stopped making it. You can use a pot every day for years, burn stuff in it over and over, even leaving forgetting to turn the burner off over night. All you need to do is use a srub pad and it is back to looking like it did the day you bought it. No other cookware will go that, and the lack of repeat sales may be a reason that it was discontinued? :)"

Yep, that pretty much my experience (though I never abused mine quite so much). But further down the thread:

"One of the reasons that the manufacturer discontinued production, I've heard, is that the U.S. government told the manufacturer to stop making them. Apparently, recreational- drug makers of metaphetamines, acids, etc., used to concoct and cook their drugs (made with a wide variety of corrosive chemicals) in large quantities using VisionWare pots, and then they used CorningWare after VisionWare was discontinued. You may notice that, currently, the manufacturer of CorningWare states and stamps on the bottom of the Corning pots that they cannot be used on stovetop (they can be used in microwaves, ovens, dishwashers --- just not stovetops). VisionWare was the perfect tool for the drug makers in their home kitchens because they are corrosion-resistant unlike the metal pots, and they're much for resistant to abuses than the fragile chemistry sets normally used in laboratories."

!!@#$%!?

Another useful appliance may be casualty of U.S. Government Prohibition War On Drugs. This is an anecdotal allegation, but it sounds like something our government would do.

Well, that would also explain why I don't see 'em at yard sales, eh? Gotta grab 'em quick if you see 'em.

But wait! Or is it that they have a tendancy to VIOLENTLY SPONTANIOUSLY EXPLODE FOR ABSOLUTELY NO REASON!?

" If I could send pictures of my husbands arm where a cool unused pot severed his radial artery and all the nerves and tendons of his right hand, leaving him with no feeling or use in it, you might reconsider buying this product."

"I have posted these dangers on the othe visionware threads, but I see not on this one. So I will say it again: VISIONWARE for stovetop use is DANGEROUS. Please do not use it or buy it! [...] When all the dicussion on visionware started on my site- there have been humdreds of emails- I got serious about the research. I have personally read the Federal product safety reports detailing crippling injuries that occurred when the stovetop pots exploded or shattered both in use and while sitting unused (one was sitting in a dish drainer). This wasn't cracking or breaking, as might occur with labware; it was a disaster with many small pieces of flying glass. It was clear that while the vast majority of correctly used Visions stoveware was safe, some exploded violently and unpredictanly. I really liked my Visionware dutch oven for boiling herbs, but I don't use it any more".

Damn!

Shall we go back to cooking by holding food on a stick over an open fire now?