Metal Utensils: Silver

An excellent conductor of heat; it is easy to burn your fingers when stirring a pan with a solid silver spoon. The ‘silver’ skillets used in expensive restaurants to prepare flambé dishes at the table are usually silver-plated copper; the coating lasts better than the usual tin.

The metal is quickly corroded by sulphur compounds in vegetables and egg yolks, forming a black tarnish of silver sulphide. This, like all silver compounds, is moderately poisonous. Red wine drunk from a silver goblet would have an unpleasant metallic taste; so the inside of such a goblet is gilded.