[Sca-cooks] Tin/Pewter Was: Cornish Pasties

[Anne-Marie Rousseau]

Hi from Anne-Marie

On pewter:
It wasn't that long ago that pewter was made with lead. In fact, some pewter
still is. But nowadays, stuff to be used for food is SUPPOSED to be lead
free. 

However, lots of people have older pieces, or pieces that they pick up from
the thrift store and we're not always sure what those are made of. Plus
sometimes a piece is made overseas that's "not for food use" even though it
looks exactly like one that is and the sticker of course is long gone by the
time its at Goodwill or that garage sale....

Lastly, I find foods served in pewter (and aluminum) can sometimes take up a
funky tinny taste that I find very unpleasant. So I tend to not use it much.

Hope this helps,
--Anne-Marie, who also plays with pewter

-----Original Message-----
From: sca-cooks-bounces at lists.ansteorra.org
[mailto:sca-cooks-bounces at lists.ansteorra.org] On Behalf Of Lisa Sawyer
Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2006 7:07 AM
To: Cooks within the SCA
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Tin/Pewter Was: Cornish Pasties

I'm not sure about tin per se, but I do remember about 25 years ago we were
told to avoid using certain types of pewter for cooking or serving hot food
because "tin" could leech into the food and eventually cause some type of
poisoning. I remembe it because at the time we were living in Southeast Asia
and pewter was a major collectible. I had at one point a large collection of
pewter mugs. They changed composition to make it safer. I think tin is a
composite metal and it was lead that was the issue but I was only 15 at the
time and didn't pay much attention.