Copper was the first metal to be worked by human hands, and that history goes back a long, long time—about 11, years. That makes the human relationship with copper about as old as agriculture, though for several millennia we didn't do much with it beyond shaping it into decorative objects. Several thousand years later, but still some time before the Egyptians raised their pyramids, our ancestors figured out how to hammer copper sheets into bowls and other vessels.
By the time of the Romans, if not before, we were using it to make cookware. Copper is famed for its ability to conduct heat and electricity—it's no accident that it's copper and not iron that runs through the electrical wires in our walls—and it's this quality that makes it such an interesting metal for cooking.
In a lot of ways, copper sits at the opposite end of the conduction and heat-retention spectrum as cast iron, making them two very different, yet complementary, materials for cooking.
Cast iron, as a reminder, conducts heat relatively poorly. It heats slowly and is prone to hot spots, but once it does get hot, it holds onto that heat very well. This makes it great for doing things like searing thick steaks, since you want the pan to remain hot when the cold meat hits it, which ensures the steak will sear and brown as efficiently as possible.
Cast iron's great heat retention also makes it ideal for slow-cooking dishes that require sustained, even heat, like stews and braises, especially when placed in an oven, where the cooking vessel is heated from all sides.
Copper inverts these rules. It heats quickly and evenly, but it loses that heat just as fast. This responsiveness gives it a nimbleness and agility that can be very useful for delicate proteins like fish and seafood, as well as sauces, caramel, and chocolate—remove a copper saucepan holding a delicate sauce from the heat and its temperature will drop rapidly, reducing the chances the sauce overcooks or breaks from exposure to the retained heat in the metal.
If you'll allow this automobile-ignoramus to return once more to my car analogy, you can think of copper as the sports car of the cookware world, and cast iron as the pickup truck. They're both useful for certain—often very different—tasks. That's the simple explanation, anyway. Put a handful of cooking geeks in a room and the conversation heats up faster than copper on a flame.
Arguments erupt over whether copper is good enough to justify its cost, and whether its relative merits really set it far enough apart from the crowd of more affordable cookware. Someone from the Modernist Cuisine team might point out that copper's unrivaled conduction isn't the full picture.
They'd argue that burner size and the thickness of the metal are factors that are just as critical, noting that a 7mm-thick piece of aluminum heats just as evenly as a 2. Inevitably someone else will refute that, arguing that the Modernist team only looked at evenness of heating and failed to consider copper's responsiveness —how quickly it heats up and cools down as more or less heat is applied to it. You can have copper's evenness with a 7mm-thick aluminum pan, they'll say, but you'll lose its responsiveness in the process.
An engineer, trying to keep the peace, will kindly put together a summation of the pros and cons of the primary cookware metals, explaining in lay terms essential concepts like thermal conductivity, heat capacity, specific heat, and thermal diffusivity. In the process, he will make a pretty good case that copper has a lot going for it. But then it falls apart when specific pots and pans get called into question, and ultimately everyone just starts trolling everyone else and we get nowhere.
And that, really, is the challenge: The relative performance of a pan— any pan—can be an extremely difficult thing to assess given the variations in mass, thickness, shape, size, and material from one design to the next. Not to mention that the effectiveness of any given pan is dependent on what's being cooked in it, and the experience of the hands using the tools in question.
I invite anyone who's up to it to try to wade into the more advanced physics to see if they can't come up with a more definitive answer than what's already out there, but here's where I've landed: copper is a unique metal with unique properties that make for some of the most deft and efficient cookware in the kitchen.
Other options, including plain aluminum and stainless steel with a thick aluminum core, can rival or come close to copper in many—but perhaps not all—ways. Copper certainly loses on cost, but it wins on looking pretty freaking great, if looks matter to you. So, do you need copper cookware? No, no more than a person who drives needs a sports car or any other very expensive car. I've been working as a professional cook for 15 years in restaurants and food media, and I've rarely used copper. A set of seven basic pots and pans from Mauviel can run you nearly two grand.
That tarnished old thing in the corner? It will polish up just fine with some salt and half a lemon or some Bar Keepers Friend and a soft cloth. So what if the lid is a little dented, as long as it still fits. Old copper cookware often has sturdier handles and hardier lids than contemporary stuff.
So as long as you check to make sure nothing is loose, these flea market finds can be a real treasure. Tarnish is fine, even a little bit of green patina is fixable, but the pan should still feel smooth and not pitted. Copper pans are not induction-friendly.
There are workarounds, but they defy the reason to cook with copper in the first place. Copper pans are also on the heavier side. One of the things I absolutely love about a copper pan is how thick and solid it feels in your hand. A heavy pan is something that you either like or not.
Consider non-stick or ceramic. A copper pan captures and spreads heat better than any other pan on the market. This is because, as a metal, copper has better thermal conductivity than any other material used to make frying pans today. I created the table below to help you understand why. It compares the thermal conductivity of copper to that of aluminum, cast iron, carbon steel, and stainless steel. On average, a copper pan conducts heat approximately 8 times better than a pan made from cast iron, The pan will preheat very quickly and be very responsive to temperature changes as you turn the heat dial up or down.
Think of it this way: If a cast iron skillet is your kitchen workhorse, a copper frying pan is like a race car. Contrary to popular belief, copper pans are not unsafe to cook in. Yes, copper itself is a reactive metal. When you cook acidic foods like tomatoes or vinegar in a pure copper pan, it will react with your food and leach copper in it. But copper pans are seldom bare copper pans.
Instead, they come with a lining on the cooking surface. That lining is made from stainless steel , silver , or tin. In the 20th century, the technology to electroplate silver onto copper became available. Then, newer production methods allowed the use of stainless steel. Copper pans used for stovetop cooking are given a lining on the inside.
That lining is usually made from tin, silver, or stainless steel, nickel, and aluminum. When copper comes in direct contact with acidic foods, it will produce compounds that will make you sick to your stomach. The lining prevents that chemical reaction from happening. There are historical reasons why people chose these materials for lining copper pans. Copper cookware is great for when you need to control and maintain consistent temperatures.
If a recipe calls for medium-high heat with your regular cookware, use medium-low for your copper pieces. Just as it heats up quickly, copper also cools down quickly. This is why so many candy makers and chocolatiers use copper pots and pans. Copper is a reactive metal. In most cases, that means it will have a chemical reaction to what you're cooking, causing a metallic flavor to leach into your food.
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