[Sca-cooks] Stainless steel

[Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Mercedes/Stephanie:
>Ok - stupid question - what does 18/10 mean in reference to stainless steel
>and if one was looking to purchase stainless steel cookware, is that the
>best?  Or is there something beyond that?
>
>Mercedes

The quick Web search I just did ["about stainless steel pots"]
suggests it _might_ mean the percentages of chromium (18%) and nickel
(10%) to iron (72%). This was from a Web page advertising surgical
stainless steel cookware that was 18% chromium and 8% nickel,
suggesting that this was what made it easy to sterilize, or some such.

All I can tell you for sure is that in general, stainless steel pots
and pans need to be pretty heavy to withstand high heat, or
everything in the steel content other than iron will simply burn
away, leaving a welded-looking "hot-spot" of soft iron that will be
the spot where foods will just love to stick and burn.

You'll want something with a heavy bottom, maybe layered with an
aluminum plate, or some kind of ceramic, or copper. We use both
Revereware (with a copper-jacketed bottom) and Farberware (with an
aluminum-plate bottom) at home (my lady wife likes them), but you
don't see too many stainless steel pots and pans in restaurants.

Eventually, if they've been abused, and/or after years of use, the
aluminum jacket can start to peel away from the bottom of some of
those pots with such plates on the bottom. When that happens, it's
time to replace them, I'd say.

Adamantius
--
"No one who cannot rejoice in the discovery of his own mistakes
deserves to be called a scholar."
	-DONALD FOSTER