Let’s face it, Le Creuset is overrated

I remember being given a Le Creuset casserole dish for my 40th birthday. I’m 62 and it’s still going strong, though I dropped it on the stone floor in the kitchen and the handle broke in two. It’s also gone a little black inside, and no longer scrubs up as nicely as it did. Twenty-two years’ service from a pan isn’t bad. But I have never really understood why so many are prepared to pay so much for a Dutch oven they could get at a quarter of the price – if only they were prepared to overlook the fact that it’s not the top named brand.

This weekend, there were huge crowds and a four-hour queue to buy half-price items at an industrial estate in Hampshire that is home to the Le Creuset warehouse. Inside, shoppers were going berserk, doing their very best to stack a matched set in the trolleys before anyone else got in first.