Maybe for Oval shaped food !!! ???
Lou

Heh heh.

I was wondering the same thing; how evenly spaced the heat could be in a pan shaped like that. Maybe you just slide the almost done stuff over to the left or right and keep the "still needs to cook" stuff in the middle.

I was wondering that the other day, too! According to the description on Amazon, it's in order to let a large pan take up less space on a crowded cooktop.

I loved this comment from one reviewer who gave it four stars:

The only down fall is the shape is not conducive to the tradition round burner and often does not cook items evenly.

Now how can you give a piece of cookware four stars if it doesn't cook evenly?!

FOAS:
Maybe she banged her head. Someimes I see stars in the daytime , inside the house . LOL !!!!!

Oval pans don't make sense to me. 2 parts of the burner is heating the kitchen, or
I'm missing something important.

I have trouble keeping up with all the round pans.
Lou

Uneven cooking would be a major pitfall! I did think of cookie things like roasts in it -- but she (RR) cooks more saute' (like jambalaya) meals in it.

I could see how it allows for more pans on the cooktop -- but if you keep having to move food around in it -- what's the point??

But they LOOK cool!!!

Fit in the cupboard better?

Definitely better in the oven, if you have to fit other things in there.

I'm guessing you all don't have oval saute pans like RR. But maybe you need them and I'm guessing she sells 'em?

I watch her show and the only pot she explained was the oval stock pot. She made it that way so the spaghetti would fit length wise. Maybe she made the pans to match the pot that she wanted?

I know I was very disappointed when I finally got an oval cast iron pot. It is too narrow for my big burner on my glass cooktop and it is too big for the next smaller sized one. I vowed to never get another oval pan as long as I was stuck with an electric cooktop.

When I use the Big Honking Pan (Calphalon 14" round sauteuse), sometimes I intentionally move it a bit so there is a cooler and hotter area, if, say, the larger chicken pieces need to "catch up" to the smaller ones. So maybe that's part of it?

But my best guess is that the shape is just something someone in the marketing department came up with when given the challenge to come up with something that customers don't have yet.

Weren't oval pans originally designed for fish? I bought an All Clad one on ebay because it was new & so dirt cheap I couldn't pass it up; I like it for frying 3-4 pieces of bacon. It heats as evenly as any other large fry pan with a similar diameter - it's just half as wide. I didn't expect to like it but it's perfect for long pieces of food that need to remain flat for frying.

One of my all time favourite pans was a Calphalon oval gratin/roaster.

Sautee pans are oval because when you do the "shake and toss" thing you have a larger area for the food to land in....I think!
I also have a le Cruset oval baker which I love....and 3 old heavy enamel oval roasters,
Linda c