[Sca-cooks] Old cooking equipment

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

>  >> Another item is a pewter porriger, just the right size for my
>toddler. There
>  >> are of course no identifying marks on it. I vaguely recall that there is
>  >> some kind of chemical test strip that can tell you if there's
>lead in a thing -
>  >> am I on the right track or merely dreaming? Any idea as to the source for
>  >> such a thing?
>  >
>  >Yeah, probably at some place like Home Depot or Lowes.  Thye are
>sold to test
>  >for lead paint on houses...
>
>And they work on pewter?
>
>Eirene

Actually, at least in California, many hardware stores sell test kits
to test for lead in glazed on ceramic food dishes.

There are LOTS of dishes with leaded glazes. In fact, they're still
sold in stores, which have to have yellow triangles, either on the
bottom of the dishes themselves or prominently displayed.

Lead in glazes can be dangerous is you eat out of them daily.
Anything acidic will leach the lead out of the glaze and into your
food. Same is true for leaded crystal. Some common acidic foods are
tomato sauces, and any thing with vinegar or citrus.

Using ceramics with leaded glazes or leaded crystal for special
occasions isn't bad.

I don't know if the kits work on pewter. Perhaps there are special
ones for that, or the kits for checking glazes have special
instructions.

Anahita
who edited a series of educational material for the State of
California on lead in glazes (i didn't do the research, just took all
the stuff written by multiple different people and turned it into
something readable)