Name: Le Creuset.
Age: 91.
Pots and pans, aren’t they? Indeed, but not just any pots and pans. These pride themselves on being top of the range.
French? You are on fire today. Le Creuset means “the cauldron”, and the company was founded in Fresnoy-le-Grand, northern France, in 1925, producing cocottes.
I thought cocotte meant “floozie”? I see your time studying French at school was not entirely wasted. It does, but it also means a fireproof dish in which food is cooked or served. Le Creuset’s “French ovens” were a huge success and by the 1980s were gracing middle-class dinner tables all over Europe.
Orange, I seem to recall. Volcanic orange – representing the heat of the foundry in which they are made – is the most famous colour, but you can also get them in almond, amethyst, burgundy, cassis, cerise, chiffon pink, ink, kiwi, Marseille blue, nutmeg, satin black ...
OK, I get the picture. It’s a famous brand that has branched out. And it is the branching out that may be the problem.
How come? In what has been interpreted as a move into the mass market, Le Creuset is allowing its products to be sold at a discount on the shopping channel QVC.
Sacré bleu! More sacré orange, but yes, your surprise is shared by marketing experts, who worry that price-cutting will “pollute the brand”. Owning Le Creuset was a statement of your middle-class credentials. If everyone has them, well ...
I take it you live in Notting Hill? Naturally.
So what is the poor middle-class Le Creuset owner to do? They could always switch to cookware made by Paris-based E Dehillerin. They really are exclusive.
Pricey? Darling, one doesn’t ask.
Isn’t there some story about Jeanette Winterson and Le Creuset? You really are determined to take this downmarket, aren’t you? There was a tale that, in her younger days, ladies in Chelsea paid Winterson for sexual favours by buying her Le Creuset pans, but it may have been overcooked.
A brief note on pronunciation: It’s Luh Cru-Zay, not Ler Crew-Zay or Ler Crew-Set. Possibly.
Do say: “Reassuringly expensive.”
Don’t say: “Forty percent off.”
