Cast Iron Cuisine

 

Cast Iron Goodness - image © The Guardian --

There was a piece in yesterdays ‘i’ about cookware. Specifically, the non-stick variety. Apparently, we're told, food sticks to non-stick cookware - something I think most people might have noticed by now - and that this is because we’re not using enough oil to coat the base of the pan evenly, resulting in hot spots that make whatever it is you are frying down ‘stick’. Problem is: non-stick pans repel oil and don’t coat evenly by design! Oops. Add to this basic cuisinatory (I think I just made that word up) nonsense that most of the cheaper pans tend to shed the ‘non-stick’ coating into the food you’re cooking, and you might think a pause for thought was due.

Long ago, I decided that cast and spun iron cookware was the best there was. We’ve had just three, very expensive Le Creuset pans in forty odd years of marriage, two of which are still going strong: the third, as far as I know, is in our derelict garage and probably in a bit of a state; but I bet if rescued it and got it shot-blasted, it would be as good as new. I’ve also still got a French-made spun steel crêpe pan which I’ve spent twenty years developing a patina on; a process that takes time - and cooking! - to achieve.

Price isn’t really a factor, despite the cookware industry and foodie pundits telling you otherwise. Yes, the well-known brands are serious investments, which to be frank will serve you well, but cast iron being cast iron, a cheap set of pans can be tempered to the same degree of usability, just the same as the expensive stuff. I bought some very cheap cast iron pans on Bangor market nearly forty years ago for about a fiver for the set. It consisted of three frying-pans [skillets] from six to twelve inches in diameter. The two smallest disappeared in one of our many house moves, but the twelve-inch, the most practical one, survived as far as our current house. I’d even made a copper handle for it, so it could [specifically] cook duck breasts in the oven, back in the mid-nineties.

It took very many years to patinate that pan into a proper black-iron cooking utensil - almost scuppered in the early part of this century when my late mother decided to try and ‘clean’ the black off it. I was not amused after spending well over twenty years getting the bloody thing exactly the way it was supposed to be, but I stepped in before the Brillo pad came out and all was well. Unfortunately, said long-serving pan bit the dust when dropped, snapping off the damned handle. Still, it owed us nothing and was markedly better than a lot of over-priced tosh, or even the cheap crap that promises too much. Cookware requires input from the cook: the simplest of tools are usually the best, they just need looking after.