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Une question pour mme. Corbel

John Liu
8 years ago

I was at the Oregon coast this week, making campfires in the sand, eating mediocre restaurant meals, and browsing antique malls. In one such mall I noticed a dull old pot.


The handle caught my eye. It looked just like the cast iron handles of my French copper pots.

Upon closer inspection, I saw it was indeed of French make.


And that the sides had the hammered finish often seen in French copper pots.

This, I thought, was interesting. This appears to be an older French pot, made of thick heavy aluminum, in a style almost identical to traditional French heavy copper cookware. Not something I've seen before.

It is dull and gray, but with a buffing wheel and metal polish, I should be able to give this old pot a near-mirror shine both inside and out. I polish a lot of aluminum bicycle components, and a dull, gouged, gray aluminum surface can always be restored. In some cases, fine grit wet/dry sandpaper is used.

So I shelled out $18 and when the pot is all shiny and pretty, I'll give it to daughter-san as her first very own piece of cookware.

My question for Mme. Corbel, and any others familiar with French cookware, is how common are such pots in France?

As mentioned, I've never seen them in the cookery shops in France, but perhaps cast aluminum pots are considered low-end and not to be hung at D'Hillerin. Or perhaps they came and went, like anodized aluminum (MagnaLite) did in the US during the 1990s, and now exist only in flea markets and cluttered basements.

My question for the kitchen scientists is, aside from not slow cooking acidic foods (tomato sauce, etc), is there anything else I should advise dear daughter not to do in an unlined aluminum pot? If there is a significant and non-urban mythy risk of Alzheimer's from aluminum cookery, why then I'll keep the pot for myself as an occasional use item.



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