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Ma Nouvelle Cuisine · Kitchen History

Il rame in cucina: storia e cura

Copper in the kitchen: from the first metal of humankind to the young commis's polishing cloth

18th-century tinned copper pan with lid from Leiden — Tinned copper pan with lid, 18th century, Leiden. Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden (public domain).

When I was a young commis, and later a junior cook, one of the first jobs they gave me was cleaning the copper. Nobody asked whether I liked it. A tray of blackened pans, a bowl of paste, a cloth and plenty of elbow grease: that was the lesson. Copper outside, brass handles, and a grey tin lining inside that you were never allowed to scratch. Years later I wanted to know where this knowledge comes from. The answer goes back much further than any kitchen I ever worked in.

1. The first metal people learned to work

Copper is one of the oldest metals used by human beings. Some of the earliest known worked copper comes from Çayönü Tepesi in south-eastern Turkey. Annealed native copper work there dates to around the end of the 9th millennium BC. These were not cooking pots yet: roughly a hundred small objects such as beads, hooks, awls and pins were found.

The next big step was smelting, extracting copper from ore with fire. Excavations at Belovode, in eastern Serbia, produced what researchers describe as the earliest direct evidence for copper smelting found so far. In Iran, the metallurgical remains of Tal-i Iblis are dated to the late 6th and early 5th millennia BC, including hundreds of crucible fragments.

From the Bronze Age onwards, copper and its alloys entered the home as vessels, cauldrons and cooking pots.

2. The Romans and the secret of tin

The Romans already understood the main problem with copper in cooking: acid foods attack it, give a metallic taste and produce verdigris, the poisonous green salt of copper. Their answer is the same one we still use today: a lining of tin.

Pliny the Elder, who died in the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, writes about it in Book 34 of his Natural History. He explains that copper vessels coated with tin give their contents a more pleasant taste, prevent the formation of harmful verdigris, and, remarkably, do not become heavier. Pliny also noticed something every commis learns the hard way: copper objects kept polished bright tarnish faster than neglected ones, unless they are greased with oil.

Roman bronze patera, early 1st century AD. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (public domain).

Archaeology confirms him. Roman soldiers carried a pan with a long handle called a patera. One fine example, a Roman casserole patera of tinned bronze from around AD 55–85, was cast in a mould and turned on a lathe, with grooves underneath to conduct heat better over a fire. Most finds of this type come from military sites, because the army spread them across the empire. In England, four Roman copper-alloy pans found at Bishop Middleham in 1997 had been tinned, which gave them a silvery look. The Science Museum in London also holds a Roman bronze cooking pot said to come from Pompeii.

3. The Middle Ages: Villedieu-les-Poêles, the city of copper

In France, one small town in Normandy became the capital of copper cookware. In 1130, Henry I of England, as Duke of Normandy, gave the place to the Knights Hospitaller of St John of Jerusalem. The making of copper pots, pans and brassware was established there in the Middle Ages (European Route of Industrial Heritage).

The inhabitants are still nicknamed "les Sourdins", the deaf ones, because their hearing was damaged by the endless pounding of hammers. The name "les-Poêles" (the pans) was only officially added to the town's name in 1962. Today you can still visit the Copper Workshop, the Pewter House, the Museum of Pots and Pans and the Cornille-Havard bell foundry.

4. The golden age of the "batterie de cuisine"

The great age of copper in the kitchen began with French haute cuisine. Two developments made copper cookware necessary: the birth of haute cuisine in 17th-century France and the invention of the cooking range in the 18th century. Sauces, stocks, braises and sautés demanded many specialised pans of every size, and copper, an excellent and even conductor of heat, became the chosen material for professional kitchens from the 18th century (Southern Home).

The full set of pots and pans of a kitchen is called the "batterie de cuisine". At Waddesdon Manor in England, the guides explain that the word "battery" originally referred to hammering the pieces out of sheet metal. Their set included sauté pans, stewpans, small pans for sauces and glazes, bain-maries and a large kite-shaped turbot kettle for cooking a whole fish. Inside each pan, and often on the rims, a tin lining protected against bad taste and toxic verdigris. The woman who inherited the house in 1922 remembered that some of the coppers needed two people to carry them, even when empty.

18th-century brass pan with red copper lid from Leiden — Brass pan with red copper lid, tinned inside, 18th century, Leiden. Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden (public domain).

Some historic kitchens still show these collections:

At the château de Montgeoffroy in the Loire Valley, built from 1772, the kitchen still displays one of the most photogenic copper collections you can find.
At Petworth House in England, the servants' quarters hold a copper batterie de cuisine of more than 1,000 pieces.
At Chatsworth, many pots are engraved with the Devonshire name or monogram and the name of the house they were made for.
Even in Australia, Vaucluse House keeps 137 tinned copper pots, pans and jelly moulds, several of them repaired by a travelling tinker, a sign of how valuable they were. They were cleaned in the scullery at a low sink where the scullery maid had to kneel.

5. Paris and Normandy: the great names

In Paris, the shop E. Dehillerin has equipped cooks for generations. In 1880 Eugène Dehillerin bought a hardware shop and a coppersmith's workshop near Les Halles, then other businesses, including an old shop founded in 1820. That shop still stands at 18–20 rue Coquillière. A long-handled bain-marie stamped Dehillerin was even found on the wreck of the Titanic. Julia Child loved the shop and made it famous among Americans.

In Villedieu, the best-known maker today is Mauviel 1830. The company tells that Ernest Mauviel founded it in 1830 in Villedieu-les-Poêles, and that apprentices are still trained there in hand shaping, hammering, tin plating and embossing. A small historical footnote: a researcher who studied the family archives found many Mauviels making copper in Villedieu in 1830, including the direct ancestors of the current family, but no one named Ernest. The tradition is real; the legend around the founder may be partly a story.

6. The brigade: who cleaned the copper?

At the end of the 19th century, Auguste Escoffier organised professional kitchens on a military model, the "brigade de cuisine". He gave every person a precise role, from the chef to the sous-chef and the pastry cook, to work faster and with more order. At the bottom of the hierarchy were the people who washed. The plongeur washed dishes and utensils, while in larger restaurants a marmiton took care of all the pots and pans. The commis, the junior cook, also looked after the tools of his station.

That is where I come in. Cleaning the copper was the first school of patience in a kitchen. You learned respect for the tools before you were allowed to cook with them.

7. How we cleaned copper and brass, step by step

The method I learned in the kitchen is the old one, and it is still the best I know.

The paste (outside only)

White flour, salt and white vinegar (or lemon juice), mixed into a thick paste. The flour does not clean by itself: it binds the mixture into a paste that clings to the sides of the pan. The salt is the gentle abrasive and the acid dissolves the tarnish. Some home cooks prefer fine salt, because coarse salt can leave tiny scratches if you rub hard.

Spread the paste on the copper outside with a cloth.
Rub in circles. The dark copper turns pink and bright within seconds.
Rinse immediately and well in hot water. Never leave acid on the metal.
Dry at once with a clean cloth. Wet copper spots again.
For a final shine, the old way was a rub with blanc d'Espagne (whiting). For very heavy stains, kitchens used a commercial copper polish.

The brass handles

Brass is copper and zinc, so it reacts the same way. Use the same paste, rinse, dry. Cast-iron or steel handles are simply washed and dried well.

The tin lining (inside): be careful!

No steel wool, no green scouring pad, no abrasive powder, no acid paste. They remove the tin.
Soak in hot soapy water, then use a soft sponge or cloth. A French cookware shop puts it simply: for daily care, a soapy sponge is enough.
If food is stuck, boil a little water in the pan and loosen it with a wooden spatula.
Grey or darkened tin is normal. It is not dirt. Do not try to make it shine.
Never heat a tinned pan empty: tin melts at around 232 °C (450 °F).
When you see red copper showing through inside, the pan must be re-tinned by a craftsman. On average a tin lining lasts about three years in a home kitchen and about one year in professional use.

8. Copper today

Copper never left the professional kitchen. Today you find it lined with tin, as in Roman times, or with stainless steel, which needs no re-tinning. Its qualities have not changed: it heats fast, spreads the heat evenly and reacts at once when you lower the flame. That is why it is still the metal of sauces, sugar work and jam.

What changed is the work around it. Few young cooks today spend their first weeks polishing a mountain of pans. But the gesture remains the same as in the old brigades, and its principle (salt, acid, rinse, dry) is older than any cookbook.

Photo credits

Tinned copper pan with lid, 18th century. Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden, inv. 2858 (public domain, CC0). View
Roman bronze patera, early 1st century AD. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Norbert Schimmel Trust, 1989, inv. 1989.281.87 (public domain). View
Brass pan with red copper lid, 18th century. Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden, inv. 2857 (public domain, CC0). View

Sources and further reading

Ma Nouvelle Cuisine · Antonino Troisi

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Copper in the Kitchen: From the First Metal of Humankind to the Young Commis’s Polishing Cloth