Anything’s possible in a cast iron

I only want to live in a world where my pans will outlive me

I have a lot of cast iron pans. The first one I ever owned, and still my favorite, is a monster around 17 inches wide, purchased while still learning how to make a proper Roux for Gumbo, how to roast large cuts of meat without burning half of it away, and something I could carry in my tiny apartment to help me practice wielding heavy pans while line cooking at the farmers market for Dai Due. It would eventually become known as the Ghee pan when I had my own farmers market stand, as we could roast butter for hours in it, strain to perfection, and eventually jar, to sell and cook with. 

Dai Due had moved on from the farmers market, and my own company, Anjore, took over the legacy of carrying many cast irons to market, slightly burning car fabric from pans still smoking after hours of service, as an attraction to marvel at our outdoor kitchen built for 4 hours of service only to face a lengthy tear down, week after week. 

When I stopped doing those markets those cast irons tagged along to the trailer and supper clubs where you could throw a whole pan in a wood-fired oven, ranging 500-700 degrees, searing and creating sauces, roasts, bread, pastries with unparalleled flavor and texture. Cast irons can do anything, easy to clean, and against popular judgement, are fairly low maintenance.  I remember showing my sous chef that you can even make a perfect Hollandaise in a cast iron by mixing the lemon, butter and egg in the pan on the open door of your very hot oven, tempering it to the ideal consistency, and then doubling that pan as a hot plate, since heat transfers like magic with iron. 

Of course people will tell you they never dare use soap, or that their regimen is the only regimen they’ll use to keep up the maintenance of their sacred pan and I believe this makes people feel a sense of satisfaction. 

I also believe it gives the cast iron an unearned reputation. 

The truth of the matter is that cast irons will last longer than you and I; I’ve never met a rusted pan I couldn’t easily revive, I wash all of my pans knowing seasonings come and go and when you forge most of them in years of a wood fire you understand that these pans can really go through Hell, they’ll be fine. 

They aren’t human, yet like humans, their scars make them stronger and the years make them more seasoned. I love seeing a very old cast iron, thinned by the layers it’s shed, the countless scrubs, only to bare more iron, giving it a silk-like surface. 

And though a symbol of American lore, and definitively part of American history, cast iron has roots elsewhere, (perhaps making it the most American quality), originating in 5th century BC, China, it is time tested, to say the least.

And it is this quality of lasting, of use, of durability that makes it so fragile in the game of late stage capitalism and it’s favorite son, Fine Dining. 

Once word got out in 2020 that the restaurant industry was in trouble, the following happened: the financial model of a restaurant was exposed as unsustainable, hence the working conditions and rampant toxicity of many restaurants were also exposed. And there was a hope, I’ll even be generous here, there is hope, that we could see real change. Fine dining was always an unideal model for capitalism. At the heart of it, it’s a restaurant that’s allowed to work at the chef’s behest. We are sold the idea of edible auteurism. 

But most art thrives because of patrons, and we use the same measurement of success, across the board as a McDonald’s. 

As we feign surprise that the industry is less concerned with merit, art, and experience than say it’s actual tenets: commercialization, commodification and capitalism, it’s important to see the cues early on when a shift occurs. More people see the value in pop ups, supper clubs, dinner parties. 

Which leads to more home cooks, house dinner parties, home cooking, the fascination of kitchen tools has led to brightly colored baking sheets, nonstick pans having a resurgence like it’s the ‘90’s, cook books instructing you to cook a whole meal with your microwave, and shoddy, chipped casseroles dishes, Dutch oven like copycats , promising durability without that pesky weight of a traditional dish. 

And to help sell you this lemon, a slew of name brand chefs and influencers are telling you they prefer these dishes to whatever they were using yesterday, to help you ease yourself into the lull of cooking not being a human instinct. I’m here to tell you it certainly is.