[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.