Aluminium for the Kitchen

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 936, 1 April 1930, Page 5

Aluminium for the Kitchen

j Aluminium has taken so important i a place in our kitchens that it is of I [interest-to the housew'ife to know if | the articles she buys are good value. |ln buying saucepans there are two | points to he considered—w-ear and the ' gas bill. ‘ j Aluminium is not a very good con- ! ductor of heat, so that it is unecom- ! mical to buy vessels W'hich are inordinately thick and heavy. On the other hand, thin ones soon get bent. The question of the quality of the. metal is a technical problem which cannot be solved by common sense. But a metallurgist can tell pure aluminium (which wears well) from impure (which wears badly) by a fewsimple tests which any housew-ife can apply. The chief impurities in aluminium ! are silicon and iron. The colour is in- ! dicative of the purity, good specimens j being silvery and poor ones blue. Alu- ; minium which is dead-coloured should ; be shunned at all costs. It is not infrequently said that aluminium saucepans make food ! “taste.” This is true of poor quality | aluminium only, for pure samples | have no taste. The impure product j has a taste like cast iron, which it ! communicates to any food cooked in it. This unpleasant metallic taste is especially noticeable with food of a delicate flavour, such as milk. The easiest way to detect secondgrade aluminium is by brisk rubbing. Such treatment makes any aluminium with a silicon impurity of more than 1 per cent, exhale the odour of silicon hydride—similar to that of cast iron.