What a $129 Frying Pan Says About America’s Eating Habits

This morning, I made scrambled eggs on a $129 frying pan.

Most of my cookware costs a fraction of that. For years, I bought pots and pans at T.J. Maxx or other discount stores.  The frying pan I used most frequently sells on Amazon for about $30.

But I cook a fair amount from home these days, and I decided it was time to splurge on a pan from Made In, a brand that is seemingly everywhere and sells expensive cookware it bills as professional quality. The pan is one of the fanciest things in my kitchen—it comes with a red rubber cover so nothing touches it, and even Bon Appetit recently recommended it as one of the best nonstick pans (who would want a stick pan?). [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

If this was the peak of the pandemic, my decision wouldn’t seem unusual. Ever since 2020, Americans have been going gaga for home goods. We bought dutch ovens and air fryers, toys and games, furniture and window coverings—so much stuff that the ports were so backed up that ships couldn’t unload goods. People especially spent big on baking and cooking equipment because they couldn’t go out to restaurants and instead quarantined at home and baked bread.

But now people are eating out again. So why are people like me still buying $129 pans? Spending on nonelectric cookware and tableware jumped 33% from the first quarter of 2019 to the first quarter of 2024, even when adjusted for inflation, according to data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. And the total cookware market is up 16% since 2019, according to the market research firm Circana.

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This could be a social media phenomenon. We are living in the age of splashy cooking videos on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube that make it seem like you, too, can make a restaurant-quality meal if only you have the right technique and cookware. Brands like Great Jones, KitchenAid, and Le Creuset are booming in popularity; TV shows like The Bear have turned even more attention to life in the kitchen. Carmy, the award-winning chef on The Bear, uses All Clad, a top brand that also sells frying pans for more than $100.

But the boom in high-end cookware is more about where and what we eat today. It turns out that the pandemic fundamentally changed our eating habits, says Joe Derochowski, vice president and home-industry advisor at Circana. We couldn’t eat out during the pandemic, so we stayed at home and cooked. Then, when restaurants started to open up again, we had a period of so-called “revenge spending,” when we went out and splurged at restaurants.

Spending on restaurants is still up significantly: 11.9% between 2019 and 2023, according to the USDA. But Americans are also cooking more at home. That’s because so many Americans work from home at least part-time that they’re eating a lot more there, even if they can go to restaurants. In 2019, according to Circana’s research, 83% of our meals were sourced from retail like grocery stores, while17% were sourced from restaurants. In 2024, 86% of our meals are sourced from retail and just 14% are from restaurants. “Think about it: pre-pandemic, you’d work in an office five days a week and could be having lunch, snacks, even breakfasts away from home,” says Derochowski. “Now, we’re working more at home and that means there’s more meals being eaten at home.”

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It follows that people like me, who spend a lot of time cooking at home, might trade up for more expensive cookware. I could buy cheap stuff and then replace it in a year, or splurge for something nicer and keep it for longer. It made sense for me to splurge on a frying pan because it’s the thing I use most in the kitchen, after a cutting board and knives.

Of course, there’s another reason that we’re spending more on cookware. Inflation is continuing to drive food prices up, especially in restaurants. More than two-thirds of respondents to one survey said that increased costs were making restaurant dining too expensive. According to government data, prices for food at home grew 1.1% between July 2023 and 2024, while prices for food away from home grew 4.1%. Prices for nonelectric cookware and tableware, on the other hand, fell by 10%. At that rate, it doesn’t take long for a few meals of eggs made on a $129 frying pan to become cheaper than a couple of restaurant omelets.