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Stainless Steel Cookware – a little history
Why Stainless Steel Cookware? … a little history
Metal cooking utensils have been in common use for centuries. Stainless Steel cookware is a more recent development.
The smelting of Stainless Steel (an iron-nickel-chromium alloy) didn’t occur until 1910 when Harry Brearley (under the employ of John Brown Laboratories and Thomas Firth & Sons, England) sought to smelt a metal resistant to rust, erosion and corrosion—a metal adaptable to military use, capable of withstanding nature and the intense heat fluctuations common to repeat firing arms.
Metallurgical studies dating back to the early 1820’s (Berthier, France), the 1870’s (Woods and Clark, Britain), and refined in 1909 (Giesen, England) pointed Brearley in the direction of an 18/10 chromium/nickel blended alloy to meet his performance criteria. Brearly’s alloy, known today as t304 Stainless Steel (one of the 300 series of ‘austhenitic’ Stainless Steel) contains a host of additional benefits—durable, nonporous, mirror-like sheen impervious to stain, easily molded, cleaned, polished and chemically inert (nontoxic).
Given the unique character of surgical grade Stainless Steel, Brearly’s t304 alloy has proved over the years to be far more advantageous as surgical instrumentation and cookware than bullet casings. The unmatched properties of t304 Stainless Steel produce the most hygienic, impervious (non-erosive, non-corrosive, non-porous, non-toxic, non-stick) cooking surface available in the cookware marketplace.
- non-erosive (will not leach, flake, peel or degrade into foods)
- non-corrosive (will not rust, tarnish or react to water, air, salt; no seasoning or tempering—wash in soapy water)
- non-porous (will not house bacteria in microscopic pores as will cast iron or other soft metals—copper, aluminum, etc.)
- non-toxic (t304 Stainless Steel is totally chemically inert)
- non-stick (real foods contain all the essential fats and fluids necessary to release themselves from a hot surface—excessive heat causes sticking, charring & burning, not the cookware).
But this is just the character of Brearly’s base alloy. Advancements in the fabrication of Stainless Steel cookware over the past fifty years has evolved to a point where Stainless Steel cookery is the established, unchallenged epitome of safe, chemically inert, healthy cooking utensils.
Related Articles:
A Lifetime of Value: An Investment in Quality
The Healthy Cookware Choice: Multi-ply t304 Stainless Steel
…for more on the Real Story of Stainless Steel Cookware
Cook healthy, eat honestly, and thrive…
Dollar for Dollar, the better choice is…real food
We are what we eat. More to the point, we are only as healthy as the health of that which we eat.
Stainless Steel cookware, and the Waterless Cooking method of preserving Mother Nature’s natural goodness, are two components of a heavenly marriage in the kitchen. But our long relationship to honest food didn’t begin in the kitchen, at the stove, in a pot or even at a grocery store. Food began where everything begins, in the soils of our ‘living earth’.
Similarly, a ‘diet’ isn’t about losing weight; it’s really about honoring and serving a body’s nutritive needs. The essential complex of vitamins, minerals, enzymes, antioxidants, fats & fiber of a healthy diet has evolved over eons. Our diet didn’t just ‘happen’. To believe today’s mega Agribusiness and it’s food outlets honors this complex balance of original nutrient value is, of course, pure fiction. Consider what tens-of-billions of annual taxpayer subsidies buys (80% of today’s agriculture subsidies are consumed by 4% of American farms):
Both piles cost us $20. At 18,585 calories, the pile on the left is roughly nine days worth of worthless fat if you ate nothing but. The produce to the right is about 2,500 calories of nature’s honest efforts to balance a body’s nutritive needs.
At a time when one in three school-age kids are overweight or obese, should our tax dollars
subsidize mega agribusiness – the primary product of which
is cheap, highly processed, nutritionally bankrupt junk.
There is a bill moving right now that can end the worst of the worst of these subsidies — and save taxpayers $28 billion over the next 10 years. Take action now. Contact Congress re: H.R. 2487: REAPS Act of 2011.
“Here’s an Easy One,” The New York Times, Jan. 15, 2011.
RELATED POSTS:
Waterless Vegetables: Quick Start Guide to Health
Veggie Wars
Veggies Wars (Part II)
Cook healthy, eat honestly, and thrive
Inquiring Minds
On occasion, those who visit us ask good questions worthy of sharing. Here’s one from Mike:
“What is the thickness of the bottoms of your cookware? What is their makeup beside the surgical stainless, e.g., nickel, titanium, etc.”
Good questions.
#t304 Stainless Steel is a century old—still the safest, most hygienic non-porous, nontoxic surface available for cooking. #t304 was developed to avoid both erosion and corrosion—an 18/10 blend of chromium and nickel. We all have concerns about nickel in our diet, but the nickel in Stainless Steel is bonded to the iron atom undisrupted by temperatures that exceed the melting point of steel.
The Maxam Family of Brands utilize a base plate that will vary in thickness depending on the number of ‘elements’ (or layers of heat conductive metals like cooper, aluminum, titanium, up to 12 different layers of metal). Heat conductive (or soft) metals naturally erode, corrode, leach into and taint foods. An obvious health hazard.
Maxam base plates double insulate these heat conductive metals from the cooking surface—both by the encapsulating plate itself, and by the multiple layers of Stainless Steel between the base plate and the cooking surface.
To answer specifically, the thickness of the base plate varies between ¼” and ½”. Base plates do not add significant weight to pots & pans. Utensil weight comes from the # of Stainless Steel Plies used in fabrication. 9-plies of Stainless Steel, for example, offers relatively heavy cookware (without greater heat-retentive benefit in my opinion). 5-Ply is the minimum # of Stainless Steel layers needed to assure desired heat retention and thus waterless cooking efficiency and performance.
Hope this responds to your questions. I’d be delighted to chat at your convenience, or visit us on our blog where many more questions are answered.
Respectfully,
Steve Denning
1-866-200-1973 – toll free
Maxam, Chef’s Secret, HealthSmart, Precise Heat, Wyndham House, Yorkville–Quality to last a Lifetime–ChoiceCookery
Choosing the Best Cookware Set
Cookware is now constructed from an array of materials, and each person has their opinion as to which is best. When you go to purchase your set, you can take advice from all of your friends and the experts, but you won’t find any answers. The truth of the matter is that the optimal cookware set for you will depend on how you cook and what features you’re looking for.
If you are looking for versatile, durable cookware, it’s best to go with cast iron. You can use it on the stove, in the oven and even transfer it to the fridge. You only have to wipe it down to clean it, but you will have to reseason it from time to time, which is rather labor intensive. Stainless steel offers a sleek, modern look, but food does have a tendency to stick to it. Non-stick stainless steel cookware sets are obviously easy to clean, but you have to be careful with what utensils you use with them and how you clean them.
Tools of the Trade
My dad appreciated quality craftsmanship and durability, especially in the tools he used. He taught the simple rules; for example, using the right tool for the job saves money, time and effort. It was a timeless lesson then, relearned several times in my youth as I tried to use a tool ill designed to perform the fix at hand.
There are good reasons for the wide variety of wrenches. Each wrench performs a specific fix better than another. This is by design. And so it is in the kitchen.
At our disposal are an array of cooking tools to use, each with an ideal purpose. I grew up watching both mom and dad as they cooked. They loved their Stainless Steel pots & pans. I inherited these utensils and still use them on occasion. Were mom and dad alive today, they’d truly appreciate the advances in Stainless design and performance.
But as dad would say, tried & true principles mature and remain:
- choose the right tool for the job
- care for your tools
- discern their unique value, precision and purpose
- learn, then teach with reverence and respect (for tool, and child).
With this notion in mind, care for and maintain your electric skillet and it will serve you for a lifetime. Stainless Steel is durable, resilient and unmatched for it’s ideal cooking surface and even heat distribution (no hot spots or scorch rings).
Follow manufacturer recommended use and care. Use a Stainless Steel polish to rejuvenate the outer mirrored beauty and inner satin finish. Avoid using sharp hand utensils on the cooking surface (wood is best for many earth-friendly reasons). Clean your skillet with warm, soapy water without abrasive pads, cleaners or cleansers (avoid bleach or salting the cooking surface directly–salt naturally ‘pits’ the satin surface of Stainless Steel which doesn’t effect performance but looks unappealing). The electrical controller will deteriorate over time (generally warranted for five years) and can be easily replaced. Most controllers last 10 to 20 years.
…a few thoughts on tools, as good today as they were 50 years ago. Cook healthy, eat honestly, and thrive
E.coli
Farmer Mario Walter mulches thousands of heads of leafy vegetables on his field in Nieder-Erlenbach near Frankfurt. After an outbreak of E. coli has killed about 30 people and sickened thousands in Europe, salads and other vegetables can hardly be sold in Germany
The infrequent outbreak of E.coli bacteria in foods is worrisome and, in a few cases, tragic. The ability to diagnose outbreaks has limited their scope, yet we have heard of the multiple deaths in Germany from this common bacteria.
What can we do at home? Our local newspaper provides a good summary of both outbreaks and preventions. …a good read.
Yet the image caption (above) says a good deal about something else–call it fear. Fields upon fields of perfectly safe vegetables are being mulched because consumers have avoided these mineral, vitamin & antioxidant-rich foods. Life has risks. E.coli is an infinitesimally small one as risks go. Be informed, of course, but don’t toss nature’s fresh goodness out impulsively. It’s clear industrial-sized agri-business and ranching practices have created an environment for the common E.coli bacterium to mutate into a hazard to be distributed far and wide. In so many ways, simple is better.
Our health is well served when we:
- shop local and eat foods grown or reared near by
- know and visit with your grower
- pay for true value–organic vegetables and free-range meats
- always practice sound, knowledgeable hygiene in the kitchen
- cook foods thoroughly
- rinse veggies (a 5-minute soak is good for many reasons)
- pay attention to how you & your loved ones feel.
A few thoughts from the families of the Waterless Cookware Blog.
Cook healthy, eat honestly, and thrive.
The Milky Roux
Common to a home cook’s basic menu is the Roux—a one-to-one stir of flour & oil mixed with a variety of meat/vegetable stocks or dairy to form the essential base of many a flavorful sauce.
Our kids love the Milky Roux, seasoned with white pepper & real parmesean cheese, ladled over a bed of whole grain pasta and chunks of chicken (spiced during sauté with a dash or grated lemon peel, chives & a leafy spice—summer savory, basil, etc.). Top the dish with fresh peas, lightly steamed green beans, broccoli, or schrooms–the choices are many).
Roux of course serves many a purpose, from flavorful gravies to tasteful thickenings for soups and stews, from chocolate brown roux for gumbo & Cajon bouillabaisse to richly lightened sauces spread over steamed veggies, breads, eggs & more.
In 1902, Frenchman Auguste Escoffier formalized three fundamental sauces—one of which retained a slight reddish tinge and thus the name Roux. A pale yellow roux of whole wheat flour and milk called Bechamel became the creamy white sauce that finds many a use in our home menus.
The beauty of roux of course is the ease of its making. Simply melt butter (oil or substitute—2 tbl sps), add flour (2 tbl sps), stir until the mixture begins to puff with steam. For Bechamel, add milk (start with one cup) and stir during the cure. More, or less milk determines final consistency. For our parmesean Bechamel, a more fluid sauce is desired as the added cheese will thickened slightly.
From the fundamental Roux, a cook can produce innumerable tastes simply by finishing the sauce with different seasonings and enrichments.
Critical to the ease and perfection of Roux is even, sustained low heat. A multi-ply Stainless Steel utensil designed specifically for even distribution of low, sustained heat is the favored choice of professionals and home cooks alike; the ideal sauce pot for creating creamy, richly smooth Roux.
Embrace the journey into the varied tastes of this essential sauce and enrich your menus. Treat your family to an important history in fine dining.
NOTE: The French are commonly granted acclaim for the Roux, but here’s a German recipe from medieval times (circa 1533):
How to Cook a Wild Boar’s Head, Also How to Prepare a Sauce for It
A wild boar’s head should be boiled well in water and, when it is done, laid on a grate and basted with wine, then will it be thought to have been cooked in wine. Afterwards make a black or yellow sauce with it. First, when you would make a black sauce, you should heat up a little fat and brown a small spoonful of wheat flour in the fat and after that put good wine into it and good cherry syrup, so that it becomes black, and sugar, ginger, pepper, cloves and cinnamon, grapes raisins and finely chopped almonds. And taste it, however it seems good to you, make it so.
–Das Kochbuch der Sabina Welserin, 1533, transl> Valoise Armstrong (courtesy of Harold McGee: On Food and Cooking: the Science and Lore of the Kitchen. Scribner 2004 ed. Page 618)
Cook healthy, eat honestly, and thrive.
Choosing The Right Investment
When you are cooking, regardless if you are a professional chef or just a mom cooking dinner, it’s important to have the right type of cookware. There are all kinds of cookware out there in the world. If you think of cookware as an investment, you want to make a good investment.
This is true, especially when it comes to cookware. You don’t want to have to replace cookware all the time. It can be pretty costly. Choosing nonstick stainless cookware is a good investment when purchasing cooking ware. Stainless steel is easier to clean and nonstick is great because you don’t have to worry about your food sticking to the pan, or having to use a spray to make it non stick. It’s a really great investment for your kitchen.
Healthy Food Matters – Mark Bittman
I’ve always enjoyed the critical musings, righteous outrage and sober teachings of Mark Bittman (New York Times Food columnist). Cooking with Mark is always about good taste, honest nutrition, and reverence for the organic green of food production and distribution. Whatever the menu, Mark’s aim is always a lesson in balance—serving a balanced meal for whole health, serving a balanced lifestyle for a sustainable Earth.
Cooking green isn’t just a recipe, it’s an attitude. In a previous post, we looked into our cupboards to revisit our food buying habits based on Three Principles of the Pantry: cook from scratch; cook what you have; revitalized your pantry.
Mark lives these principles, and stumbles in the face of change too. If you’re not familiar with Mark Bittman, take a minute to get to know him—he’s personable, entertaining, and a worthy guide for learning what & how best to cook for the health of body & planet.
Take these links:
- his introductory note to “The Food Matters Cookbook” is honest and, as you will see, illustrates a common attitude about healthy eating we all commonly share.
- more recently, Mark’s NY Times column: “Food: Six Things To Feel Good About.” He is purposefully withholding some of his ‘bittman’ spice.
As always, Cook healthy, eat honestly, thrive–use cookware designed to retain nature’s honest efforts—premium Stainless Steel Waterless Cookware, the ultimate in lifelong durability, beauty and performance.
The Maxam Family of Quality Waterless Cookware
Maxam is USA born and bred, and now a family of brands known world-wide as the finest Stainless Steel Waterless cookware you can own–Quality, Affordability, Durability, Performance:
- Maxam®
- The World’s Finest®
- Chef’s Secret®
- Precise Heat®
- HealthSmart®
- Wyndham House®
- Yorkville®
…a family of brands with 60+ years of waterless cookware craftsmanship and innovation. Maxam holds patent for the Steam Control System® (or vented knob) and first to aid stove top baking with the Thermo-Knob System® (internal utensil temperature control).
Maxam Cookware employs the highest American standards for material quality and fabrication in the industry–that’s a given. But what sets Maxam apart from all brands of Stainless Steel Waterless cookware is VALUE—the ultimate in cookware performance at AFFORDABLE price points (see A Lifetime of Value to more fully appreciate the value of these pots and pans).
The reason Maxam cookware sells for @ $250 instead of $2500 is simple and straightforward:
> NO Storefront Markups (stores cost money to operate & you pay for it)
> NO Distribution Middlemen (buy direct from Authorized Dealers)
> NO Demonstration/TV/Celebrity Markups (when you buy on-line)
The costs of doing business on-line are pennies compared to operating stores, hosting home or county fair demonstrations or paying for Wall Street marketing campaigns, celebrity endorsements, etc. Operating this Blog for example adds less than a $1 to cookware represented by our sponsor, ChoiceCookery. And yet ChoiceCookery.com reaches tens-of-thousands more buyers than any storefront or cookware demonstration.
High price is not a measure of quality; it’s a measure of marketing expense, shelf space, and outrageous profit margins. There’s no reason to pay the price. Shop around, become informed, and choose wisely:
- Buy from Authorized Dealers who will service you
- Buy on-line (avoid the mark-ups)
- Speak with dealers, ask questions
- Good representatives will ask you questions too
…about your cooking methods, family size, meal types and help you choose the perfect cooking utensils for you and your family. Contact ChoiceCookery and get to know the source.
Cook healthy, eat honestly, and thrive.
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