by Mary E. Preece

Created on: August 06, 2008

Non-stick cookers and other cookware I use

I've been cooking now for at least 45 years or longer. I began cooking in thin aluminum cookers when I was 12 or 13 by helping my mother in the kitchen, and learning to make cookies and candy for sales at my school. Although at a younger age I made potato candy using my own recipe since I did not know the real way and mixed the potato right in with my peanut butter and powdered sugar. A learning experience to say the least. Also, I once told my eight grade teacher I could make lemon chiffon pies and she ordered 2 from me. I thought lemon pudding was like any other pudding so I made them the way other puddings are cooked, I had them down by heart. I was afraid to ask how they were and she never volunteered to tell me, sparing my feelings, I'm sure.

Mom had only aluminum cookers when I was growing up except for maybe one or two that was stainless steel. The skillets were mostly all black cast-iron and had to go through a seasoning process before they became non-stick and perfect for about anything.
My sisters remember when my mother cleaned the aluminum with sand to scour out stains. Those little thin aluminum cookers aren't sold or used anymore as far as I know due to health scares that aluminum came off in the food and through digestion was carried through the bloodstream where it settled in the brain, leading to a possible cause for Alzheimer's. The same is true with theories that the coating on non-stick cookers may result in causes of certain illnesses.

To me, though, I love heavy non-stick cookers and frypans for so many things. If the cookers are thin having non-stick surfaces will not help; foods will stick and ruin very quickly. The savings in scorched food alone is worth the use to me, for I usually scorch everything I put in a stainless steel cooker that is not coated. Nothing is worse that having to scrape and scour a pan that has burnt food in it, especially corn, and I am certainly not discounting the odor in the kitchen from scorched food.

If I want to fry chicken, pork chops, fried potatoes, then a non-stick frypan is great for it. If I plan to make homemade sausage gravy then the iron-skillet is perfect. I do not like non-stick fry-pans for breakfast gravy but for eggs nothing can compare to them. The Tramontina cookware is excellent cookware that is non-stick. Although my daughter and daughter-in-law have them I have not bought myself a set as of yet. I still hang on to the old cast-iron and the few non-stick I have that are in good condition. I usually discard the non-stick when the surface starts peeling and replace them one piece at a time as needed, making sure I buy heavy pieces.

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