cleaning cookware

[dynaflow]

I bought a piece of Club cookware on ebay it was NASTY but it was a pattern u dont see often a speckled look well they came and the pix didnt lie they r a aqua speckled with white > I took the handle off the 8" fry pan and dropped it in a dutch over with water and a cup of Borax let it boil for a few minutes let it soak overnight. Tonight i took it out and scrubbed it with a SOS pad and all that black crap came off very easily

 

[danemodsandy]

Ron:

It's absolutely amazing how often expensive cookware ends up looking like Hell because of poor cleaning practices. Your experience with Club is similar to my frequent experience with Farberware. It takes oven cleaner and muscle, but some unbelievably filthy cookware has come back looking nearly new as a result.

Hats off to you for your accomplishment!

 

[jamiel]

My mom and our neighbor Mrs. Meier both had copper-bottom Revere Ware (undoubtedly wedding present cookware--what else for ladies married in the 1959-1962 timeframe). Anyway, my mom's were always sparkling clean (except for the copper bottom which needed to be polished), but Mrs. Meier's were brown, greasy and nasty. I for the longest time thought it was because my mom cooked on electric; while Mrs. Meier used gas. Only in thinking back about it did I figure out the reason. With only 2 kids, my mom could fit the Revere Ware in the dishwasher, so it got thoroughly clean. With 4 kids, Mrs. Meier didn't have room in the dishwasher for the cookware, so it got washed by hand in a sinkful of greasy water, and came out with a film of grease which cooked on to the outside of the cookware. Amazing what you take for granted!

 

[danemodsandy]

Jamie:

"Amazing what you take for granted!"

And even more amazing what some people will put up with to avoid making the effort to hand-wash properly.

 

[dynaflow]

sandy

the only problem with oven cleaner on club it ruins it  the borax is gentle try it on farberware baked on crud sometime

 

[wayupnorth]

I have Revere cookware and never put it in the dishwasher. I use copper cleaner on the botton every so often. But as my grandmother always said "You have to scour them", like she scoured everything with steel wool, including all the labels off her old Maytag wringer, that I still have and use.

 

[rp2813]

My mom had a set of 1949 Revere Ware that was a wedding gift.  For many years, that's all she used -- until Teflon was born. 

 

We regularly scrubbed the copper bottoms with a powder after washing.  At some point in the 1970s the Revere took on a decorative role and hung from a line of hooks above the stove.  Some pieces would see occasional use, but mostly they just got greasy and oxidized, and the copper bottoms would get scoured just to keep up appearances.

 

[abcomatic]

Club

I have a harvest gold Club aluminium frying pan that I haven't used in years. If I wanted to use it, should it be a good idea to use an SOS pad and then use aluminium cleaner to shine it up? Do I have to be worried about using aluminium cookware? Thanks, Gary

 

[lordkenmore]

Do I have to be worried about using aluminium cookware?

Lord Kenmore grew up with a mother who had--and heavily used--a set of 3 Club pans. Plus his mother used a plain aluminum electric skillet for possibly up to the first 5.5 years or so of his life. Look how he turned out!

[Pause]
[Sounds in the background of everyone who knows Lord Kenmore tossing out aluminum pots and pans of all descriptions into the trash, after having read paragraph #1.]

 

[lordkenmore]

Seriously

I don't qualify as an expert on whether aluminum pans are safe. But, from what I read, I suppose the safety of aluminum cookware is debatable. I remember one worry at one time about aluminum pans causing Alzheimer's, but as far as I know, that was never proven. Also, as far as I know, it was never disproved. There is an article on that, which ended by saying the experts quoted haven't done anything like toss cookware.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...726998-ae75-11e2-98ef-d1072ed3cc27_story.html

I've heard some people with a strong interest in health express concerns about aluminum cookware past any possible Alzheimer's connection. But, again, I've heard nothing "officially" proven one way or the other.

Speaking only for myself here...

I have to admit I don't think I'd be comfortable with using plain aluminum as my only cookware (although there are reasons that go past health for this). At the same time, I'm not sure I'd totally avoid aluminum or die in the trying. In other words, if I had a single pan that I wanted to use, I'd probably keep on using it sometimes.

It's also worth thinking other materials can have issues... I recently learned some people say they have sensitivity to nickel, and can have issues using stainless steel cookware. I have heard lots of concerns about non-stick cookware.

I sometimes joke that with all the diseases that one could get by ingesting something or other, the only safe thing to do is stop eating, which will drop risks of cancer, heart disease, etc... But, obviously, doing so one will quickly starve to death...

 

[danemodsandy]

Ron:

I'm sorry, I did not mean to give the impression that I was recommending oven cleaner for Club. It works very well on Farberware and Corning Ware, which are my preferred cookwares, but Club is all aluminum, which is different. My apologies.

I'd like to speak to the "aluminum-cookware-causes-Alzheimers" meme. I have a lot of professional background in cookware, cooking and nutrition, and this controversy was very big at the time I was in the business. After considerable research, and talking with some people at Emory University (a med school), I found three things:

A) No causal link has ever been found between aluminum ingestion and Alzheimers. None.

B) The amount of aluminum one gets from cookware varies very drastically according to the cooking method. Frying in fat causes almost none, for instance. Cooking acidic foods can cause more. Storing acidic food in aluminum can end up putting a lot of aluminum into the food, like shoving a pot full of leftover spaghetti sauce into the fridge.

C) Aluminum is very difficult to avoid no matter what you do. It's in deodorant, packaging materials, all kinds of things. It's also naturally present in agricultural soils of certain regions, like Alabama, where the soil is rich in bauxite, the ore from which aluminum is derived. Quick - is that an Iowa onion or an Alabama onion in the produce section of your store?

My recommendation to cookware customers was always to avoid cooking high-acid foods in aluminum if they had concerns, and never to store food in the cookware. So far as I know, they all still remember this advice. [this post was last edited: 1/24/2015-05:46]

 

[lordkenmore]

>The amount of aluminum one gets from cookware varies very drastically according to the cooking method. Frying in fat causes almost none, for instance. Cooking acidic foods can cause more. Storing acidic food in aluminum can end up putting a lot of aluminum into the food, like shoving a pot full of leftover spaghetti sauce into the fridge.

Another possible issue is cooking time. Obviously more time=more chance for aluminum to leech.

 

[danemodsandy]

That's True....

....One of my female relatives was very bad about cooking and storing acidic foods in aluminum. She had a Frigidaire range, and she eventually let acid foods eat a hole in the pot of her Thermizer, due to long cooking/storing times. She forever blamed Frigidaire for poor quality!

She never had Alzheimers, but a psychiatrist would have found her, um, interesting....

 

[dynaflow]

Sandy

no need for a apology knew what u were talking about

 

[norgeway]

I use

Aluminum more than anything...but for acidic things like spag sauce etc , I use Aristo Craft stainless....Aluminum is far more , even heating,so I use it for most things,Mother used Revere Ware, and I have a dutch oven and the square skillet.thanks to Dynaflow,..that I use, but Revere takes finicky heat adjustment, in other words ,,you have to really watch it or you will burn hell out of something in it, I have a Revere griddle,while pretty, I would never think of trying to make pancakes on it!

 

[vintagekitchen]

expensive cookware getting wrecked..

You guys aren't kidding. I have seen so many pieces of expensive high quality cookware abused over the years it's ridiculous.

Most of it is salvageable thanks to oven cleaner and elbow grease, but sometimes people manage to truly destroy things that a few years earlier they paid a lot of money for.

My birthmother had several pieces of Club aluminum, and eventually destroyed them all. The skillets became bowl shaped due to warping from overheating and being taken from the hot burner directly to a sink of water. The dutch ovens became pitted with huge craters over the years from her storing acidic foods in them rather than risking dirtying another dish by transferring the contents to a bowl.

And what you see at the thrift stores? Ugh. The worst is the vintage enamel on steel or enamel on cast iron. People literally destroy the stuff. Huge chunks of enamel missing, chips everywhere, crazing all over from overheating or plunging hot pieces into water, it's insane. I love enamel, it's what my gramma had, hers was all cheap thin enamel on steel, not the good heavy stuff, and very old, but just like new, because she cared for it well, and never abused it. My aunt has had a set of the good stuff, heavy enamel on steel for nearly 30 years, it is like brand new as well. All my pieces are the same. Apparently my brother missed the gene. I got him a good set, 5 years later only the dutch oven was still usable, and it had several chips. The saucepans were totally destroyed.

 

[lordkenmore]

I also have seen lots of totally destroyed cookware in thrift stores. Enameled iron with the enamel missing huge chunks has not been an uncommon sight here.

The other somewhat common damaged high end cookware is Calphalon. It almost always has the anodized worn through or destroyed on at least part of the inside. Sometimes it's so far gone that the inside looks like a plain aluminum pan.

 

[lordkenmore]

>Revere takes finicky heat adjustment, in other words ,,you have to really watch it or you will burn

That was my observation with the one Revere pan I had. It was the coveted "Process Patent" even.

 

[sudsmaster]

My mom also had Revere Ware.

 

When visiting the kitchen of an elementary school friend, I noticed their Revere Ware was hanging on the wall, copper bottoms gleaming.

 

I blurted out, "Wow, ours are all black!".

 

Sure enough, word got back to my mom and I got scolded for that. Later on I found out my friend's father used to take that cookware to the basement and polish it on a wheel.

 

Years later I bought my mom another set of Revere Ware. Those bottoms didn't gleam either. And for some reason she preferred to use plates as lids, even though the set I got her had all the lids she'd ever need. Maybe she did that to pre-warm the plates. I don't know. Go figure!