Skillet Hygiene
Eileene gave me a cast iron skillet for Christmas. It raised my enthusiasm. My experience with an enameled cast iron pot from Le Creuset has been terrific. Pot roast, beef stew, a spicy pork-and-beef mixture… mm-mm! The pot won’t do everything, however. It’s important to sear meat before putting it into the stewpot, for flavor. Technically, I could do this in the enamel ware, but the small cooking surface on the bottom, the very short handles, and the high sides all make the task far too awkward. Using our Circulon pan for the searing has pretty well ruined the non-stick coating, so I asked for a plain cast iron skillet just for searing stew meat. Turns out, it’s good for steak, too, and could probably conk a burglar, in a pinch.
Nonetheless, I’m developing misgivings about this pan. Let me quote instructions 3 and 6, from the “Use and Care for Lodge Logic” tag.
3. After cooking, clean utensil with a stiff brush and hot water. Using soap is not recommended, and harsh detergents should never be used…
6. NEVER wash in dishwasher.
Not that we have a dishwasher, but that closes the last door to actual cleaning. Bear in mind that this pan’s whole purpose revolves around heavy grease, whether it renders out of meat or you add it yourself for frying. By the time I finish cooking, there’s a thick layer of grease covering the whole pan. And this isn’t just lard, it’s a sticky black filth, shot through with charred particles of meat. Anything that touches this stuff is contaminated. Have you ever heard the old saw that oil and water don’t mix? Guess what! It’s true. Washing this pan with hot water is like trying to sterilize the New York subway system with a toothbrush.
Let me describe the routine. It reminds me a lot of The Cat in the Hat Comes Back, where the Cat in the Hat leaves a mess in the tub, and uses a series of household items to clean the spot, and clean the cleaning utensil, and that utensil, and so on, with the spot getting larger each time, until it covers the whole neighborhood.
First, warm the pan gently to help liquefy the grease. Stick it directly under the hottest water the sink will give, and scrub with a brush. This will remove the crusty bits from the pan, but leave any grease that does not adhere directly to the brush behind. Once the brush is thoroughly coated with black gunk, switch to a scrubber pad. This, too, will develop a heavy black coat, rendering it useless for cleaning any other dishes. Rinse the pan once again. Set it aside. This is as clean as it will get. If you like, you may now try to clean the brush and scrubber, with the benefit of soap. This will not work, but will cover your hands in a film of grease. If you are careless with a brush, the bristles will flick black, greasy droplets on any other dishes you may have cleaned, the counter, and any nearby walls. Industrial strength cleaners may fade, but will not remove, the consequent stains. Wash your hands in the bathroom sink. Lather, rinse, repeat. Lather, rinse, repeat. Lather, rinse, repeat. Industrial strength cleaners may remove the gray sheen now on the inside of the sink basin. Or they may not. Return to the kitchen and dry the pan thoroughly with a towel (instruction 4). This will blacken the towel, leaving it unfit for any other purpose. Now – wait for it – “apply a light coat of Pam or vegetable oil while utensil is still warm.”
Mate, this pan is coated. It’s bleedin’ layered. Enwrapped in protective oils, it touches no atmospheric corrosives. It’s greased. It’s swaddled in fats. Slicker than a greased pig. It’s frictionless. Jellied. This pan wouldn’t oxidize if you went after it with a blowtorch. If it weren’t nailed to the wall, it would be lubricating the linoleum. This… is a preserved skillet.
Just how sanitary can this be? I tried to reassure myself that people used cast iron cookware for centuries, but gave it up when I realized these same people regularly died of horrible diseases before they reached thirty. Oh, I know that heating the pan is supposed to kill any microorganisms lurking on it when you start cooking again, but that isn’t very reassuring. People can get food poisoning from tinned food, consuming bacterial waste long after the bacteria themselves are gone. Is even a spectacular pot roast worth that.
Mmm…pot roast.