cAst iron

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Lead is just but one thing I would think about. Any time you buy , find a old cooking wares ??? All type of junk can make trouble. Could have been used to scoop **** for all any one knows.

I'm guessing that **** (my asterisks) is one of many things that heating the pot far above boiling point would definitively put right. With lead it is likely to produce that fateful conversion to oxide. Also if you eat a bad oyster raw and come out on your feet, the offending substance and its bacteria are eliminated from your system in a day or two. Lead, like most heavy metal poisons, is lasting and cumulative.

I'm not sure how much difference the acidity of Roman wine made. Nitrocellulose used to be made with hot and concentrated nitric and sulphuric acid in lead vats, which weren't much affected. They also had lead water pipes, the ones that could afford it, and that is likely to be several yards per wine-jug, and the jugs and cups were short-term containers.

[lightman]

I've also wondered if cast iron that had lead in it could be cleaned up. I would guess that it could be. But, is it worth the risk? I have an older dutch oven that my Grandpa used for melting range scrap in that I used for the same before I went to a bigger pot. I think I'll take my die ginger and etch some type of warning on the side of it. Then whoever ends up with it can make the choice for themselves.

[oldred]

There has been a lot of mention about the Romans consuming lead tainted wine (every single one of them is dead now so I suppose that is proof that the stuff will you!) but I also seem to remember reading somewhere that they sprinkled ground up lead on certain foods as a sweetener, don't know how sweet lead tastes but I am not about to eat any to find out!

[DIRT Farmer]

From my medical days lead oxide has a sweet taste. That is the supposed reason kids would chew on surfaces painted with lead paint.
On another point remember mercury was the treatment of choice for some veneral dieases before antibotics. Why because it worked.

[DLCTEX]

I would burn it in a hot wood fire on a calm day so that it can cool slowly after being really hot, then clean and season. Any lead left would be insignicant.

[mold maker]

45 posts and we are no closer to a definitive answer. I suppose common sense is the rule we should use. J have stamped my dutch ovens "Lead Use Only" so the future is defined.