I once read something to that effect. I think that iron at very high temperatures interacts with certain foods to release carcinogens. Maybe I'm not remembering correctly.
Also, elderly people, especially men, often have too much iron in their blood, which can be a heart attack risk. They are advised to limit the amount of cooking they do in cast iron.
When I did all of the cooking in the house, I washed the cast iron skillets every time I used them and they worked just fine. I bought them new and they turned nice and black and became very non-stick. Gradually, my husband started cooking more and more, and he would not wash them. He doesn't cook fish in them, but what gets to me is sausage. How can you not wash a pan that has been used to cook sausage? Ick.
And like Els, I now find them too heavy for my wrists, except for the very small one.
BB
So we all have our favorite cooking pots and tools. I have a steel (that rusts) potato peeling knife. It really is an old Herring "kaken" knife, that was used by fishermen at sea to clean the herring. The nice thing is that it keeps its edge much longer than stainless steel, which have alloides in them, so the steel will not rust (however that does not mean that it will not stain though) I clean it after use with a SOS.
Els
Good morning Barbara, great to hear that you use your cast iron pots like I do. Hot soapy water and a quick wipe right away. My pots are great. I bake a wonderful whole wheat olive bread in a Dutch oven with a handle on the side. It is a perfect bread baking pot. I have a wee tiny one egg frying pan, I use for mortanting when I do natural dyeing, it works like a charm as well, time after time after time.
Els
Everything gets washed in boiling water. I hate dishwashers. When I am visiting in Toronto, I do nothing else but loading and unloading dishwasher, they make a terrible noise for hours on end. Once a day standing by the sink, everything gets washed in hot hot water, with a good amount of soap. It air dries and Bob's your uncle. (where did that saying come from)
Els
I do not mind if my cast iron is washed. The cast iron griddle gets wiped after pancakes, but it gets washed with soap after it has cooked sausage. But, My wife has been known to polish a cast iron skillet with abrasive until it was bright silver all over (followed shortly there after by orange rust.) It is now back to being a deep black, but it took a while.
The nonstick black finish on cast iron is polymerized oils that adhere to grains of carbon in the iron. The result is a porous film that holds unpolymerized oil and other materials. Meat juices can get into the oil film where they are exposed to 400+ temperatures in the presence of metals (Na & Fe) that act as catalysts for the formation of heterocyclic amines (HCAs) which can then show up in the food products. This is pretty much just like BBQ. I still eat BBQ too. Any kind of an acid material such as tomato or pineapple can leach iron from CI in toxic amounts. I still think that my cast iron skillet makes the very best pineapple upside down cake, so that is how I make it. In short, the San Antonio Chili with meat and tomatoes long simmered in a cast iron pot had better be really good, or it is not worth the risk.
Global warming will cause the levels to gradually rise. But, there are other effects that may happen as fast as Hurricane Katrina. Most scientists do not talk about these near term and potentially abrupt climate changes for fear of being labeled "extremist", "alarmist" and losing their funding and reputation. I do not have any reputation or finding so I can say what the data tells me. The data tells me that abrupt climate changes on a scale of
5C over a period of 3 years or rainfall changing be a factor of 3 in the same period in some localities is a real possibility. How large a possibility? Well, larger than the probability of my house burning down, and I still have fire insurance. My mortgage company insists. So why don't they insist that we do something about global warming which has both a higher probability of happening and a larger impact?Aaron
Dear friends,
The only thing I have to add to the topic of treatment of cast iron, is after cleaning my skillets or Dutch oven, (either with plain water, or with soap and water when needed, I always put them on the range using a medium low heat to dry them completely.
I have 3 pieces, 2 very old, and 1 I seasoned myself, and all are in perfect condition. They rarely need re-seasoning (once in 5 or 10 years) and they work beautifully.
Hesira
Who loves her pots and pans!
Jeepers, have you TALKED to her about this obsessive-compulsive behaviour?? :-) :-) No way I would polish anything that doesn't need it, I have more productive things to do with my time (like maybe sit with my feet up reading a novel?)
Olwyn Mary in New Orleans.
Oh, yes!
Higs, Katherine
Sure we talk. But, if I was to search very carefully in a group of knitters, I might also find a few other behaviors that seem excessive : ) Heck, my old climbing buddy says that I knit to excess - but that does not stop him from wearing the lopi ski socks that I knit him - and his asking me to knit him some more!
Aaron
I had a good iron knife when I was in the US. It also rusted, and although it didn't keep its edge for very long, it was easy to sharpen to a very fine edge. Once a friend of my daughter had a summer job selling knives and I agreed to be her first "customer" so she could practice her sales pitch. She was supposed to ask Mrs. Housewife to bring out her best knife so she could demonstrate the superiority of the brand she was selling. My old iron knife ran circles around her fancy stainless steel knife. She was a bit worried, but I reassured her that most of her customers wouldn't have such a knife.
I left that old knife in the US when I moved to Italy, and I'm really sorry I did that.
Barbara, that makes me think of our trip to Chattanooga, to visit our son who lives there. We came down from Detroit through Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee. We stopped in many road site places and because I forgot a proper knife to slice the cheese and butter the bread for road side picknicks, I bought a steel knife in one of the tourist stores along the highway. I think it was a hickory brand one, and a steel one. We I have several of these, and I love them for the same reason. It is not that easy to get knives like that today.
Els
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