Ingrid Bauer/J-C Catry wrote:

> >French pans have copper or ceramic interiors,

If you have an unlined copper pot or pan DON'T USE IT until you have it relined.
Copper is an excellent heat conductor but copper will leach into your food. In
mild cases it can cause gastrointestinal upsets but extreme exposure can cause
liver damage. All of those copper pots used in gourmet restaurants are lined
with tin. If you have any copper cookware that is scratched or if you can see
spots worn away so the copper is showing through you need to have them retinned.
www.retinning.com is one of the few places left that can restore copper pots.
The cost is about 1/4 the replacement cost of a quality copper pot and well
worth it. The lining will probably last for the rest of your lifetime and your
kids or grand kids can inherit the cookware. I just had two done by this company
and they do a beautiful job. Everything came back polished looking like new.

Helen