Cooking & Baking

A bit pricey, admittedly.

Keep away from aqua regia, mercury, and selenic acid, though.

(Years ago, I read an article in National Geographic Magazine about gold, which kicked off with the author relating his experience frying eggs in a solid gold skillet, which required -- IIRC -- a $10,000 refundable deposit. The basic results: thumbs up on the eggs.)

Gold was a lot cheaper back then.

Oooh, found a video of Julia Child cooking with a 6-lb gold skillet -- courtesy of a Nat Geo TV special !

forward to ~32:00 to 33:00

Gold was originally tested because of its high thermal conductivity -- but both copper and silver have better (area) thermal conductivity ! And diamond is five times better ! So for real gourmet snobbery, you need to get yourself a diamond skillet. It's worth noting that there are industrial-diamond coated pans available -- maybe these are more sensible than one might think !

Perhaps the best cookware for even heat distribution on a stovetop is ceramic-coated aluminum or copper. The thick, outer layer of metal distributes heat quickly to prevent formation of hot or cold spots, but heat flows more slowly through ceramic, so it needs to be as thin a layer as practical to keep hot spots from forming at the pan-food interface. Metal-lined ceramic would work the other way -- hot spots would form in the ceramic (or glass) but would be spread out by the metal, particularly if the metal layer were thick. This suggests enameled metal, with the enamel only on the outside ! Don't know if anyone's ever tried that, but many non-stick pans are enameled on both surfaces, so that's probably quite good enough. Just get the thickest metal you can (except cast iron, a piss-poor conductor of heat. Ask any blacksmith.).