[bsder]

Who cooks everything north of 400F?

I saute in butter all the time which has a smoke point of 350F or less. I adjust my cooking temperature to suit the dish.

If my pan is so hot that the olive oil is smoking, I'm probably burning the hell out of whatever I'm cooking.

[devbent]

> Who cooks everything north of 400F?

Depends on the cuisine. If I'm wok frying something as hot as possible is a good starting point!

Also if I'm going to throw 2lb of protein on a pan I need it as hot as I can get it so the temp doesn't drop down to nothing after the meat is added.

[bsder]

Won't you be using peanut or soybean oil for a wok?

And "wok hei" relies on explicitly igniting the oil to burn it, which renders the whole discussion moot.

If I'm trying to keep a pan hot in the face of 2 pounds of cold, watery protein, I either need something like a mass of cast iron, an induction system or a gallon of oil.