To me, folks worry too much about their cast iron. I have used mine for almost 40 years and, really, I don’t do much with it. I wash it just like I would any pan with soap and water.

I haven’t gotten that many new ones. Most of mine I have gotten at garage sales. But, when I get a new one, I just boil grease in it to season it. Mine get rusty sometimes and I just wash the rust off and boil some grease in it, before I cook in it, then dump the grease out. I mean, don’t wash it out — some grease will be left. No big deal.

I use mine a lot. I don’t use any other pans except for certain things. Like for fried eggs, I use a teflon skillet. Or, if I am making jam, I would use an enamal pan. I wouldn’t boil tomatoes, or make the sauce or ketchup, or cook rhubarb in cast iron. I would think the acid would some how combine with the iron and the food would taste funny. But I do boil potatoes or macaroni in my soup pot.

I make bread in my cast iron skillets. Also, I make pies in them, and cakes. If I am making a lot of pies, then I would just make one in the cast iron to be eaten within a day. Then, the other pies I would put in regular pie pans because you can’t store pie in a cast iron skillet … it would make the fruit turn black. Actually, you shouldn’t store any food in the cast iron.

I especially love my dutch oven, or my cast iron soup pot, with the bale handle. I start my soup on the top of my stove, and then I put it in the oven to simmer for the day if I plan to have it for supper. The cast iron can go from the stove top to the oven. But I start out by frying the meat in my pot and, while the meat is frying, I start cutting up vegetables. I just put them in as I get them cut up. Then I add the water, usually with a can of soup, or a gravy mix. The liquid has to cover the meat and vegetables. Then I add the herbs and spices and sometimes, after the soup has simmered in the oven for a while, I take it out and put it back on the stove top, bring it to a boil, and place homemade biscuits on the top. Then I put the pot quickly back into the oven on about 400