Did you know your not supposed to wash cast iron with soap and water? It causes rust.

Instead Just wipe it out. Storebought cast iron needs to be treated once. Maybe later I can dig out that process. seems like it was pretty simple to do.

I bet a lot of ya'll already knew that.

-- K & S (healthywizard@earthlink.net), September 26, 2001

Answers

the times when I do use soap,, I re season it again

-- stan (sopal@net-port.com), September 26, 2001.

This info is at least 50 years old to my knowledge and most likely more than that. Take a cast iron cooking piece, clean it as best as you can, down to bare metal only, grease it with lard, crisco, hog fat, ect., put it into a cold oven and turn the heat up to 350 to 400 for an hour; shut off the oven and let it cool, try to use it for a grease cooked meal: chicken, fried potatoes, ect. for a time or two; empty, wipe, never use soap again....

-- mitch hearn (moopups@citlink.net), September 27, 2001.

lightly but thoroughly oil the entire pan with crisco. Not lard, not butter, not margarine. Crisco. Rendered lard may be ok, but I know butter and margarine are not, and Crisco is.

Preheat your oven to 450. put the pan in there and let it cook for 4 or 5 hours. Wipe it out after it cools, wipe it out each time you use it.

I cooked almost exclusively with cast iron throughout most of my childhood. Hate the stuff, but to each his/her own. LOL!

-- Sojourner (notime4@summer.spam), September 27, 2001.

My FIL "cooks" his in the wood stove once a year.

(S)

-- K & S (healthywizard@earthlink.net), September 28, 2001.

Not sure if this is bad for the cast iron or not but whenI have really stuck on stuff in the pan, I soak it in hot water and scrub with just that. Then re season. Gloria

-- Gloria in MD (mullinaxclan@webtv.net), October 04, 2001.

soybean or canola oil gums up cast iron. The best way to clean is to make red-eye gravy - that is how it was invented!

Scrub under hot water til all the inside surface is smooth to the touch, you can flash-dry an oft used properly cared for pan. Or put on stove top til dry, remove from heat and rub with a little shortning on a paper towel; we used a piece of a paper grocery bag when I was a kid. I have one that has been in use in my family for over a hundred yrs. still gets lots of use.

-- carol (kanogisdi@yahoo.com), November 24, 2001.