Copper cooking utensils are attended with so much danger, that the use
of them ought to be laid entirely aside. They have not only occasioned
many fatal accidents, (which have been made public), but they have
injured the health of great numbers, where the slower, but not less
dangerous effect has not been observed. If not kept very clean and
bright, they become covered with verdigris, for all fat, oily, or
buttery substances corrode copper; and if they are kept clean and
bright, the rubbing or scraping that takes place when making stews, or
cooking dishes that require stirring, and remaining a considerable time
on the fire, always wears off some of the metal which impregnates the
food, and has a deleterious effect.
The inexcusable negligence of persons who make use of copper vessels has
been productive of mortality, so much more terrible, as they have
exerted their action on a great number of persons at once.
Though, after all, a single dose be not mortal, yet a quantity of
poison, however small, when taken at every meal, must produce more fatal
effects than are generally apprehended; and different constitutions are
differently affected by minute quantities of substances that act
powerfully on the system.
Some years ago, the death of several persons was occasioned, at
Salt-hill, by the cook sending a ragout to the table which she had kept
from the preceding day in a copper vessel, badly tinned. Another
instance of death occasioned by the eating of pickles, prepared in
copper vessels, is mentioned by Dr. Percival.[41]
[41] See a Treatise on the Adulteration of Food and Culinary Poisons,
and Methods of Detecting them, p. 249.
Dr. Johnson gives an account of the melancholy catastrophe of three men
being poisoned, after excruciating sufferings, in consequence of eating
food cooked in an unclean copper vessel, on board the Cyclops frigate;
and, besides these, thirty-three men became ill from the same cause.
If, however, copper utensils are to be used, they should be employed
with the precautions as used in France, where the tinning of the vessels
on the inside is done as regularly as the shoeing of horses in a
farm-yard.--If the least occasion is thought to exist, the vessel is
immediately tinned; but to prevent all risk, it is generally done _once
a month_ with stew-pans that are in daily use. Moreover, the victuals
are never stirred with any thing of metal, but with a wooden spoon, or
flat stick made for the purpose.
The following wholesome advice on this subject is given to cooks by Dr.
Kitchiner.
“Stewpans and soup-kettles should be examined every time they are used;
these, and their covers, must be kept perfectly clean and well tinned,
not only on the inside, but about a couple of inches on the outside; so
much mischief arises from their getting out of repair; and, if not kept
nicely tinned, all your work will be in vain; the broths and soups will
look green and dirty, and taste bitter and poisonous, and will be
spoiled both for the eye and palate, and your credit will be lost; and,
as the health, and even the life, of the family depends upon this, the
cook may be sure her employer had rather pay the tinman’s bill than the
doctor’s.”
Various kinds of food used in domestic economy are liable to become
impregnated with lead.
The glazing of the common cream-coloured earthen ware, which is composed
of an oxyd of lead, readily yields to the action of vinegar and saline
compounds; and therefore the jars and pots of this kind of stoneware,
should not be used for marmalades and other conserves. Pickles should in
no case be deposited in cream-coloured glazed earthenware pots.
The baking of fruit tarts in cream-coloured earthenware is no less
objectionable All kinds of food which contain free vegetable acids, or
saline preparations, attack utensils covered with a glaze, in the
composition of which lead enters as a component part.
_Wooden Tubs_ lined with lead, should not, as they often are, be used
for salting meat, as the salt brine corrodes the lead, and all compounds
of this metal are dangerous to health.