In Praise of Revere Ware
You know what happens to old people as they begin to forget things they’re cooking on the stove and burn their pots? Their families decide it’s too dangerous to have them use the gas range. Before long they are considered unsafe to live alone.
I have burned the Revere Ware we’ve had in the family forever. They are so well-made that it’s hard to burn them beyond repair, but I did it. The first one I took out to the trash immediately, so my daughter wouldn’t see it, but she happened to come into my kitchen just after I’d blackened the second and the third. “Mom,” she said, “I got you a timer. Why don’t you use it?”
Both times, I had turned away for only a few moments.
The replacement pots I bought, made in China, turned out to be flimsy—just a little scrubbing dulled the silvery coating. So I went in search of used Revere Ware at garage and estate sales, but found none. These pots have become collectors’ items, especially those manufactured between 1939 and 1968. A used kitchenware store offered one medium-sized pot for $80. Ridiculous, I thought. These had been common pots, everyone had them, for decades. Now that they were gone, nothing else would do.
Eventually my daughter found one of the larger pots at a suburban thrift shop for eight dollars. My other daughter, who lives in a small town on California’s north coast, said she’d get a couple for me because she often saw them at garage sales, priced at a few bucks. And my sister-in-law found two at a thrift store in the suburb where she lives. So now I again have a whole set of Revere Ware. The copper bottoms are imprinted with the brand and “Riverside, California.” And now I always set the timer before I light the stove and turn off the flame before lifting a pot off a burner.
Fellow old people, don’t give up. Be meticulous about using a timer—always, even if you are just heating some milk and don’t mean to turn away even for a moment. Every day now, I gaze at my Revere Ware with pleasure. It’s been some months since I got it and not a single pot has so much as been singed. The next generation will inherit them.
