Last weekend, I recalled that someone had posted a link to the Soy distributor in USA, which by a freak coincidence is located in little Anacortes, WA just a few miles from my beach house. I decided to drop by, and I’m glad I did, because they stocked perhaps 15 different standard pieces. Here’s their site, so folks can check prices or order: http://www.compasswines.com/Copper-27/
I was quite impressed. The default lining is silver, and the planishing is fine. There are sexy curves to the shapes much like the Italianate shapes of Mazzetti’s wares. The pans were of various thicknesses that seemed dependent on use, but the thinnest was an enormous unlined preserve pan at 1.5mm. The rest erred on being fort or extra fort; as an example, the fish poacher was a full 2mm, and many of the pieces were 3mm. The splayed handles were well-shaped and securely riveted (as many as FIVE rivets per handle!). The handles are also scaled to the sizes of the pans–the large saucepans had quite massive handles. The only problem I had was that the handles are all bronze instead of cast iron.
Judge for yourselves, but I thought the prices were not exorbitant. These pans come with a lifetime re-line guarantee–I do not know what it costs to ship to Istanbul and back for resilvering, but it must be less than paying to resilver in USA.
My loyalty lies with BCC, but these are very nice pans–perhaps nicer than their photos and ad copy would indicate.
Fascinating! I watched the excellent video in the above link, and it is an artisanal multi workshop enterprise within Istanbul’s Grand Bazar. The owner is a young multilingual entrepreneur full of infectious charm and bravado who shows the steps taken in making of a 24cm fry pan out of solid pure silver. It retails for a cool $5K, and he says that he gets orders for sets “from Arab royalty for their yachts”. The company website shows that their core business is making copper cookware, lined with either tin or silver:
I did not see any discussion or the merits of silver versus tin, but I will go back to look for the silver lining… Silver has a much higher melting point than tin, but I imagine that to keep costs down and due to the limits imposed by electroplating, the silver coating is thinner, which will impact the durability of the coating. What is reassuring about buying tin-lined copper cookware today from companies like Brooklyn Copper Cookware is that it is continuing a tradition that is tried and true and has been established and tested over several centuries. Despite the limitations of using tin, the development of this style of tin-lined copper cookware helped propel the evolution of French (and Italian) cuisine to incredible heights. These are the tools that helped to make it happen.
I am less familiar with the history and tradition of using silver coatings in copper cookware, but it is an interesting variation in the evolution of copper cookware.
Silver v. Tin lining is a bit of a strange match-up.
Silver won’t melt in cooking, even if you accidentally overheat the pan. This also means that sizing the pan to the food is not as important as it is with tin-lined. And it means you can preheat a silver-lined pan empty with no worry.
OTOH, a good hand-wiped tin lining is substantially thicker than an electroplated silver one. I haven’t yet worn through a silver OR a tin lining, but there’s less “there” there with silver. It isn’t linear, because silver is a little harder than tin.
Tin is cheaper and easier to reline, although the cost of the silver itself is not significant.
Silver is more reactive to sulfurous foods (notably eggs and cruciferous veggies) and can alter the taste of others, e.g., caviar and white asparagus.
I would like to see someone try making copper cookware using the old Sheffield plating process. In simplistic terms, Sheffield plate is made by bonding sheets of copper and silver together, and THEN rolling the sheetstock to thickness and forming the piece. It has the advantage that the bimetal can be worked as if it is ONE metal, and can yield a thickness of silver greater than that attainable by electroplating. So Sheffield holds the promise of thicker silver linings which will last longer.
Tin works really well despite its limitations. So it’s a win/win whichever you choose.
@centurylife I really enjoyed the background you wrote up about the company.
The next time I’m in Istanbul or visiting my sister in that corner of the US, I’ll be tempted to drop in and check them out (oh and resist the temptation of buying)
I have a beautiful 28 cm Soy rondeau and lid. It’s 3 mm thick and just over 8 lbs. w/o the lid . I love the shape and the side handles. But I also think a thicker layer of silver would be ideal, as in the Sheffield method perhaps.
My thought is that silver tends to migrate into the copper especially when heated. So it may ‘look’ like the silver is wearing when in fact it may just be migrating, and sort of forming an alloy.
Many ‘platers’ of silver on copper often use a barrier layer, typically of nickle to prevent this. Older Sheffield plate seems to be thick enough that this doesn’t happen. And I don’t imagine that a cookwear manufacturer wants to plate the copper pan with nickle first and then silver for various reasons, although really it’s not out of the realm of possibilities.
I’ve had other things chrome plated, and they also use layers of copper/nickle/ chrome. Gold plating is similar in that it uses a barrier layer.
There was someone on chow(hound) who had her copper Soy replated after she ‘scoured’ it, but still seemed cautious of it and bought solid silver fry pans for her next purchase and is very happy. I’d not be interested in that kind of expense, but more power to her.
I wonder if Kaleo has seen any silver migration on his huge rondeau, or perhaps I am imagining this effect?
