It’s the day after Thanksgiving, and I must have too much time on my hands. We ate leftovers, which were delicious. In the process of cleaning up, I decided it was a good time to share a little “secret” about how to clean copper. My copper bottom Revereware is 34 years old. I received it as a gift for having a baby.
Here is the “secret”. KETCHUP.
Or catsup. It doesn’t have to be a brand name, just ketchup. It could even be the stuff that you get in the little plastic squeeze packet at the hamburger stand.
Squeeze a little on the copper.
Apply it with your fingers. Go ahead, play with your food. You don’t need to rub, just smear it around.
In the moments it took to get my fingers rinsed so that I could take the picture, the ketchup had begun to work on the copper.
I waited 5 minutes. Then I couldn’t stand waiting. I had to rub the ketchup around some more. Like finger paint.
Rinse.
It’s not “gleaming” spotless, but the pot is 34 years old, and it took more time to clean up between pictures than it did to clean the pot.
No scrubbing.
And then everyone loves you because you “smell like french fries”.
An alternative is lemon and salt, which is also fun to mess with. If you have a wedge of lemon left over from some recipe, rub it all over the copper. Then sprinkle salt on the lemony area. Watch the magic.
The lemon can be used as a ’scrubber’, and add more salt as extra abrasive, if you need it. Then throw the lemon down the garbage disposal. It gives it a fresh lemony scent, which it can always use.
Leslie
I’ve heard about this method! I don’t have copper, but does ketchup work on silver bracelets??
Comment by ybonesy — November 23, 2007 @ 5:19 pm
Hi ybonesy,
Toothpaste for silver bracelets. And it leaves them minty fresh…
Comment by leslie — November 23, 2007 @ 5:25 pm
And baking soda, as an abrasive, for the brown stuff on the inside of the glass coffee pot…
Comment by leslie — November 23, 2007 @ 5:29 pm
I have those EXACT cooking pots! I got them from my mom and they were the pots we had all the while I was growing up! I use the same trick too, except I never thought to use ketchup — I used pasta sauce. Ketchup’s a heck of a lot cheaper, though! Thanks, Leslie!
Comment by burbanmom — November 23, 2007 @ 6:32 pm
Hi, I have heard of the lemon and salt, but never tried it. Now the ketchup idea is great! Thanks. I have canisters and copper pots from Chile. Gene’s job to clean them, so he will be thankful for you!
Later,
Jo
Comment by JoCastillo — November 23, 2007 @ 10:29 pm
very nice
I worked in a restaurant where the trim and the counter of the pick-up area were copper…. we used the vinegar/salt
recipe to clean it up
ketchup — since I never eat it it is nice to know a use to put it to (Mom saves all the ketchup packets she ever gets from fast food places… I’ll tell her what to do with them)
Comment by StayAtHomeKat — November 23, 2007 @ 11:25 pm
Hello, ladies all,
It has to be the vinegar/sodium chemical reaction.
Yum!
I am not sure where I first heard of this ketchup thing. It was fairly recently. I had always used the lemon/salt, and didn’t always have a lemon handy.
I bet you could use “Realemon” juice, too.
And pasta sauce is an interesting twist
And to think we eat this stuff
Another household item I keep around is 0000 steel wool. Just in case there are any visiting guest chefs I need to impress with my shiny cookware, the tiniest little piece of that will buff the copper and any scorches on the steel to a nice shine. Then I toss it, or it rusts. Way cheaper than Brillo pads.
My man in the kitchen, Alton Brown, from his TV program Good Eats, dropped a great hint. I don’t like the ‘taste’ of started fluid on grilled foods. He suggested using a capful of vegetable oil on the crumpled newspapers instead. I am amazed at how great this works!
That’s another one for Gene, Jo! He’s gonna love me giving him all this extra to do…
Comment by leslie — November 24, 2007 @ 8:04 am
*remembers ketchup trick for later*
I used the toothpaste trick on my rings and smelt like mint for days :p
I use to use the blue dish srubbers/brillo pads to get the rust off of my bike, took a lot of work but my bike was nice and shiny after that, too bad ketchup probably wouldn’t have worked. lol
Comment by Jennifer Rose — November 24, 2007 @ 3:38 pm
Hi Jennifer,
I first learned to use steel wool to shine the chrome on my bicycle.
Can you just envision kids all over the world smearing their bikes with ketchup? Ewww.
I have used baking soda on jewelry, too.
I wonder what effect, if any, “whitening” toothpaste has on metals?
Comment by leslie — November 24, 2007 @ 7:08 pm
You have to clean pots?
Comment by Minx — November 25, 2007 @ 4:37 pm
Minx,
It is a “seasonal copper overhaul users ritual”, but I am not clever enough to make that into some pertinent acronym…
Yes. My husband stands over me with a small whip, and a squeeze bottle of ketchup, and requires that I do it.
Comment by leslie — November 25, 2007 @ 6:20 pm
No. Way.
Leslie! That face in the ketchup! I think I see the Flying Spaghetti Monster there in that ketchup blob on the second photo!
Your cooking has been blessed by his noodly appendage. I’m not even a Pastafarian, and I can see his visage right there, down to the meatballs.
Make a bowl of spaghetti with haste and rosemary.
Comment by The Flying Trilobite — November 27, 2007 @ 7:18 pm
Flying Trilobite,
You are TOO CORRECT, Oh Extraordinarily Observant One!!!
This is a truly miraculous sighting, as it was a brand new bottle of ketchup, the opening of which released his exalted FSMonsterness in all it’s glory! All Hell!!
My menu tonight, oddly enough, is a Pastafarian Meal Deluxe! Angel Hair Pasta with red and green peppers, mushrooms, and lots of garlic! Truly a Holy Meal. Let the pilgrimage to my blog to witness this rare sighting begin in earnest…
All Hell!
Comment by leslie — November 27, 2007 @ 7:43 pm
Well, I’ll have to give that a try. Thanks for the tip.
Comment by eastcoastdweller — November 28, 2007 @ 7:35 pm
Leslie here,
For those of you unfamiliar with The Church of The Flying Spaghetti Monster, and the obvious appearance of the spaghedeity on my blog, in the second photo in the series “how to clean copper”, showing the ketchup (tomato product, a perfect vehicle for manifestation ), I have provided these two links that will answer all your questions as to what the heck I’m talking about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster
http://www.venganza.org/
Comment by leslie — November 29, 2007 @ 11:39 am
Eastcoastdweller,
This post has raised an interesting question in my mind…aside from me, who has copper bottom pots, how much copper does a household typically have? How much have You got?
Comment by leslie — November 29, 2007 @ 11:41 am