Description

Originally developed for military applications in World War II, CorningWare®’s Pyroceram® also proved effective for bakeware in the home as well as in the war. This glass-ceramic, non-porous material was capable of withstanding sudden temperature changes and was resistant to stains and odors. The same dish could be used for cooking, freezing, and serving food, a boon to cooks looking for kitchen shortcuts. In the 1990s, the company transitioned to ceramic stoneware to accommodate the growing demand for a wider variety of colors and designs, but the original glass-ceramic cookware was reintroduced in 2009 due to popular demand. It was first introduced in 1958 by Corning Glass Works in the United States. The brand was later spun off with the sale of the Corning Consumer Products Company subsidiary (now known as Corelle. Pyroceram has properties similar to glass and ceramic, and CorningWare was advertised as being capable of being taken from the refrigerator or freezer and used directly on the stovetop, in an oven or microwave, under a broiler, and go into a dishwasher You will be surprised to know that Corning is a 150 year-old-company credited with creating the glass for Edison’s bulb! Corning was founded in Somerville, MA as Bay State Glass Co, but quickly moved to Corning, NY, in 1868, where their headquarters have remained for over 150 years now. Corning’s most famous and oldest product was Pyrex, still available in the market today. Pyrex was created in July 1913 at the behest of a scientist’s wife, Bessie Littleton. Pyrex was a line of ceramic and glass cookware that looked nice, was easy to clean, could be used for many purposes in the kitchen, and withstood the test. Like most scientific innovations, the creation of CorningWare was a happy accident. Donald Stookey of the Corning Research and Development Division created CorningWare. One day, he was working with a piece of photosensitive glass, which he kept in a furnace, intending to heat it to 600°F. Upon checking the glass after some time, he discovered that he had accidentally heated the furnace to 900°F and the glass turned into a milky white color. He was trying to discard the glass, then again, by accident, he dropped it. To his huge surprise, the glass did not break! Instead, it just bounced off the surface of the floor. This was the interesting incident that led to the creation of Pyroceram – a glass-ceramic mix that could withstand an oven’s high temperatures (up to 840°F). In 1958, Corning Inc. started producing Pyroceram cookware under the brand name “CorningWare.” Despite the immense popularity of CorningWare, by the 1990s, its sales had started slumping. Newer and designer cookware had started to take shelf space at big stores. The baby boomer generation, which was accustomed to doing things the elegant way, gave way to Generation X and Y, who gave more importance to functionality. In 1998, Corning had to sell off both its top product lines: CorningWare and Pyrex, to a company called World Kitchen, LLC (now known as Corelle), and in 2000 the production of CorningWare products was stopped. Factories and supply lines making Pyroceram based CorningWare in Charleroi and Clinton had to be shut down. After that short and sweet trip down history lane, let us come back to the raison d’etre of the article: Where is CorningWare made today? The answer is not very simple. Most of Corelle’s products continue to be made in the US, including the Pyrex glassware that was a companion to CorningWare for so many decades. But the original Pyroceram material for which CorningWare was famous is now produced in Bagneaux-Sur-Loing, France. The cookware for the stovetop line is produced by Keraglass/Eurokera, who has a factory there. Production of the original Pyroceram based CorningWare cookware is very limited nowadays. CorningWare cookware is legendary, and legends never die. In 2017, Corell started producing the original blue and white pattern of CorningWare cookware again as part of its 60th birthday celebrations. If you have been passed down a piece of the original CorningWare cookware, you know what it is worth. To many of us from that generation, CorningWare still stands for family gatherings, nice holidays, and childhood.