Cast Iron Cookery

The virtues of cast iron cookware are several. It takes any heat, from very low to super high. If the recipe calls for it, it retains that heat. Over time, it develops a nonpareil non-stick surface. And it’s fairly easy to care for, even eschewing soaping and scrubbing. Backpackers often “clean” their cast iron Dutch ovens with gravel or river sand. 

Cast iron cookware also lasts a lifetime—or more than a lifetime. George Washington’s mother “gave and devised,” one-half each to her two grandchildren, her “iron kitchen furniture,” her cast iron cookware. 

So why is it that so many cast iron skillets and Dutch ovens while away their own long lives in the nether regions of the kitchen cabinetry? 

I spoke to a few home cooks to find out why. “It’s not fashionable anymore,” says one; “too heavy,” says another. 

And myths about cast iron persist: “I can’t reduce my (acidic) tomato sauce in it.” Or “cook with wine” or other acidic foods in it. Or “Cast iron is a pain to maintain.” Or clean, or keep from rusting.

As the first president’s mother might have said to these cast iron naysayers, “Pshaw!”

Cast iron’s non-stick surface, if lovingly established, may not be as slick as fry-a-nude-egg Teflon, but it will take higher heat than the latter, still be nearly as slippery and, to some folk’s minds, safer for it.

The key to cast iron’s patina and an answer to many of these complaints is what’s termed its “seasoning,” the polymerization (or to use a less techie term, “plasticization”) of the cooking fats or oils with which it comes in contact during both cooking in it and caring for it.

Stovetop or oven (or even burning charcoal) heat breaks down these oils into large-chain molecules that then bond to the iron itself in a never-ending layering—if the dang pans are used, people—that becomes impermeable to (mild) acidity, makes the pan facile to clean and maintain, and resistant to rust and oxidation.

In the end, it’s cast iron’s way with heat that selects it as a preferred ware for much cooking. It just makes common sense, when you think of it.

John Hinman, proprietor of Denver’s Hinman Pie and one of the region’s top pie makers, answers his own question, “How often do you get a pie when the top is done but the bottom is still soggy? A lot.

“With cast iron, the fact is that when the pie is done, because the pan keeps so much heat, the bottom continues to cook. The pan nurtures and finishes the cooking, plus it continues to force moisture in the form of steam out through the top’s vents.”

Sounds like a win-win. Right, Mother Washington?

For a recipe for cast iron skillet steak, click here.

For a recipe for a cast iron cherry pie, click here.