I remember, as a young lad, sitting in my Grandmother’s kitchen and watching her whip up meals when we came to visit her. I remember that her pans were black and crusty-looking (at least on the outside). And I remember enjoying those meals a lot.
In the years since then I’ve had an on-again, off-again fascination with cast iron cookware. Mostly off-again when I was young because I was more fascinated with technology: I witnessed the birth of the personal computer and the Internet. Watched as the first men walked on the moon. I’ve watched as so many things that for decades were mere science fiction became common place parts of our lives. Including Teflon.
As I aged I mellowed and have turned back to the old ways. Yes, I have a computer (5 of them in fact) and the Internet is an essential tool for what I do, but I’m living on a mountain-side acreage away from population centers. We get our water from our own well and our waste goes into a septic system. I grow as much of our food as I am able, and I am again fascinated by cast iron cookware.
When my Grandmother passed away and my Dad said to my brother, sister, cousins, aunts and uncles, and me, “Come take what you want from her house. Anything that’s left will be donated to charity or thrown out.” I really wish I had gone and claimed at least a few of those old pans of hers. Those would mean something to me now. Not just as excellent cookware, but as a memento of her. She was a good lady.
What my wife and I have in our meager C.I. collection now are all modern Lodge pieces, but they are cast iron and I am again learning to use them effectively.
As my curiosity mounted and I began to research the history of cast iron cookware I began to share what I learned in some articles I’ve written (writing is what I do for an income). The more I learned the more I wanted to know, and the more I researched. I’ve written some posts on Of Mice and Mountain Men that have found their way into Grit Magazine. One appears in the current edition of the Ogden Publications’ Country Living Skills series – Cast Iron Cooking. They asked me to do another for next year’s edition. To complete that I needed some pictures. One of the pictures I needed was of an old-world piece of cast iron. I canvased my friends to see if anyone had a really old cast iron skillet I could photograph.
One did, but it was in bad shape. To get a decent photo I’d need to strip it down, take out the rust and season it to a usable condition again. So I did all that and took photos of the process. That too will make another article for some magazine.
Friends loaned me various pieces they had tucked away in closets, so I restored all of them. All of them were “no-name” versions. So I set about learning how to identify the maker and approximate year it was cast. Deepening the pool of knowledge just makes the whole adventure more fascinating.
Will I become a collector? No.
I don’t have the resources to go out buying pieces just for the sake of being able to say I own it. Bragging rights don’t feed the family. But we are keeping watch for pieces we would put to good and consistent use in our home. That I can justify.
And when I’m making that Saturday morning omelet in my cast iron skillet, I think back to watching Grandma Ann singing while cooking up another good country-style meal. Sweet memories.
