[bushbaba]

It’s always amazed me that high carbon steel / cast iron / stainless steel pans aren’t more commonly used.

You literally are buying it for life. They cook the food way better. And a small amount of oil is all that’s needed for eggs and other non stick applications

[rolleiflex]

I’ve bought into the cast iron hype a few years ago, and I have found it a little overhyped. There are several reasons why cast iron is not a common component of the average kitchen today. Here are mine:

- The non-stickiness of cast iron has probably been best in class in its age. Today, we have Teflon. Teflon is so non-stick we have trouble having it stick to the pan when making pans. My understanding is that nothing, especially nothing you’re likely to have in your kitchen, beats Teflon, ever. (Kenji Lopez-Alt, a well known chef and/or food scientist alongside being a cast iron fan, also attests to this: https://www.seriouseats.com/2014/11/the-truth-about-cast-iro...)

- I’ve found that it does go against some of my (potentially hypochondriac) cleaning tendencies. Essentially, you can wash it and I think you can use soft soaps, but you can’t really actually scrub it with a hard sponge if you want to get the food out fully. It seems that the carbonisation of food and polymerisation of oil in a layer cake is in fact the thing gives the cast iron its nonstick properties. To someone used to the convivial shine of stainless steel, that’s a tough pill to swallow.

Cast iron is cool, and I’m sure it has its uses, but as someone who only dabbles in kitchen stuff, I’ve found it very inconvenient and frustrating to use.

[kevinmchugh]

You can wash with soap and water and your favorite sponge. It's fine and will make your cast iron much more pleasant to use.

If you really need nonstick (frying eggs, basically), that's what you have to use, but cast iron and carbon steel are incredibly versatile and a better buy if you're space-limited than nonstick

[bushbaba]

For cleaning cast iron just get metal chain mesh. Use it like a sponge but without soap everything easily comes off. [1]

As for eggs. Stainless steel with some butter. Way better tasting than teflon. And either way the oil absorbed is minimal.

Sure if my day job was making French omelettes all day, I’d use a Teflon pan. But really on a day to day it’s not necessary.

[1] doesn’t have to be this model. But something like this - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B084VJG9VN/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_...

[faeriechangling]

I find it has massive merit on account of the underpowered ranges most home cooks have. You simply can keep a cast iron pan hotter than you can other types of pan. This makes it ideal for high temperature cooking like when searing.

Keep in mind that carbonized and polymerized layer is getting scorched every time you cook with cast iron so it's not the most hospitable environment for bacteria.

[rolleiflex]

My concern was less about hospitability to pathogens (indeed, half the point of cooking is to render things safe to eat), and more about the fact that neither polymerised fat nor carbonised food is good for you in terms of free radicals. It’s essentially burnt oil stuck to the pan, that is not a good thing to eat even in trace quantities.

I do realise that polymerisation is conversion of burnt oil into polymer at which point it is largely inert, but it’s very hard to get an oil to fully polymerise 100% outside of lab conditions.

[greedo]

I learned a really handy trick for cleaning my cast iron. Heat the pan pretty hot (like the temp you'd use for searing a steak). Run your tap water as hot as the faucet will deliver, then (carefully) fill your cast iron pan with the hot water. It will boil off 99% of the gunk in the pan, and you can clean it out with a wet sponge.

[lupinglade]

Properly seasoned it will be as non-stick as Teflon or better. Especially carbon steel, which is also lighter - the main down side of cast iron is weight. Teflon flakes are much worse for you than a bit of iron ever will be (not really an issue in these amounts).

[rconti]

I've spent an incredible amount of time trying to season my cast iron, and it just never works right. You'll hear various tips. Cook lots of bacon on it. Do this. Do that. "old cast iron is better than the new stuff". Etc. But, so far, that advice hasn't really gotten me anywhere.

[bushbaba]

A lot of cheaper cast iron is roughly finished and doesn’t have a smooth cook surface.

Try getting a wire brush for a drill and smoothing it down.

This is generally only an issue for cheaper cast iron pans.

That or just get high carbon steel.

[kaiby]

I've seasoned my cast iron pan many times. I don't think it ever beats teflon, though it gets to a point where things wash off of it pretty easy with just water and a chainmail ringer.

[colanderman]

I tried a cast iron skillet and could not for the life of me get it to heat evenly. I'm talking like French toast burnt near the middle and uncooked at the edges.

Stainless steel triple-ply (copper + aluminum) pans though have been fantastic. Even heating and nothing sticks with a bit of oil.

I haven't figured out how to cook pancakes on them yet though, without relying on the Leidenfrost effect, at which point they just kinda burn and don't cook right.

[rsfern]

What kind of range do you have? Resistive heating can be a bit tricky with cast iron, but I’ve found that preheating the pan in the oven can help. Cast iron has really high thermal mass compared to clad cookware, and lower thermal conductivity

[colanderman]

This was with gas. I think I did try preheating once, but it was just too much prep work for regular use.

[lupinglade]

They cook the best too - a good carbon steel pan is worth its weight in gold. Non-stick is utter garbage in comparison - and you're cooking on plastic and eating pieces of the coating.

Food cooked on carbon steel or iron tastes so much better.

[RcouF1uZ4gsC]

> and you're cooking on plastic and eating pieces of the coating.

And with cast iron, you are cooking in random organic polymers and eating them. The patina of cast iron pans is random organic chemicals.

[lupinglade]

I've not seen our cast iron or carbon steel pans flaking off into food like I have seen with Teflon. I doubt there is much of anything harmful coming off during cooking -- not any more harmful than the cooked food itself likely.

[gxnxcxcx]

I too see a lot of sensible awareness towards PFAS, but often wonder how many (if any) good ol' PAHs get thrown into your food from the fat seasoning of non-coated pans.

[float4]

> and you're cooking on plastic and eating pieces of the coating

There are actually ceramic non-stick pans, in which case you'd be eating sand if I understand the concept correctly.

[lupinglade]

Non-stick pans do not last. The ceramic coating option is terrible and everything will stick to it with a vengeance within about 6-8 months or so if you use it regularly - our experience with Cuisinart.

[wander_homer]

We got two ceramic coated pans 6 years ago and they're almost as good as new even though we used one of them for almost every cooked meal and the other like at least once every week. They're a pleasure to work with and I wouldn't want to miss them.

[genericone]

Non-stick pans require a bit of care as well. The trick is to ensure no sudden temperature changes to the pan, which will differentially expand/contract the cooking surface. Differential expansion/contraction between the top and bottom surface will crack the non-stick coating in no time ( think expansion cracks in concrete and sidewalks ).

What that usually comes down to is to let your non-stick pan cool to room temperature before you run water over it, even if you like seeing all that steam. Also, you weren't expecting to sear meat with your nonstick anyway so don't slap a massive cold slab of meat on your unoiled non-stick either.