Never and forever are neither for men.You’ll be returning again and again.-Fritz Leiber, “The Circle Curse,” Swords Against Death
My wife of 25 years did something I warned ‘never’ to do: she put a piece of my cast iron through the dishwasher. This is the classic offense against Southerners’ sensibility that people from the north do after they move down here. This was a grill press rather than a skillet, but still
Cast iron really is indestructible, though. It took some work to clean the rust and reseason it today, but it came out just fine. I shouldn’t have worried about it.
It’s good as new, which is to say, not as good. But it’s good enough to get started rebuilding a new layer of seasoning.
I know that that is a "rule", but I have washed and re-seasoned any number of cast iron pans over the years.
ReplyDeleteSometimes you'll have one that's just been so badly mistreated or neglected that the best way to fix it is to get it back to bare metal and then reseason it.
It's better not to get to that point in the first place, but it's not the end of the world, either.
Of course that's true, Thomas, but it's a great excuse to put up that excellent quote for sure.
ReplyDeleteHand washing cast iron is sometimes OK, sort of. Dishwasher is a big no-no. A friend has a cast iron pan that his grandmother got back, ah, “some years ago.” I’m not sure anything would even dare think of sticking to it, it is so well seasoned.
ReplyDeleteLittleRed1
It depends on what the "seasoning" is. It's good to get a wide variety of things worked in, but a few always taint everything after, and it's better to just start over.
ReplyDeleteNo soap though. I know some people do and say it's fine, but I have never dared.
Since you are still married, one must assume the Bowie did not go in the dishwasher......
ReplyDeleteShe didn’t wash the Bowie. That’s both my backpacking knife (because it is very light, in spite of its size) and also my slaughter/butchering knife. It was made by a local Cherokee knife maker by stock reduction from an old sawmill blade.
DeleteNumerous disasters have flowered from letting the missus load the dishwasher. It's definitely the man's job.
ReplyDeleteMy sister expressed that same sentiment to her husband when he complained about her not washing the dishes before loading them.
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