A Memory Like Cast Iron Pans

"You don't wash cast iron pans."

Except that you do. See http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/11/the-truth-about-cast-iron... , which points out there are a number of myths to do with cast iron pans, and says one of the things to do is:

> Clean it after each use. Clean your pan thoroughly after each use by washing it with soap and water and scrubbing out any gunk or debris from the bottom. I use the scrubby side of a sponge for this.

"The most important reason is that food cooked in a cast iron pan adds a character to it. It starts to shape the flavor of what you will cook in the pan later on."

On the flip side, quoting from http://articles.latimes.com/1999/may/12/food/fo-36243 :

> From the 1930s through the '60s, Americans were convinced you had to have a certain kind of bowl to make a proper green salad: a plain, unvarnished wooden bowl which could never be washed. The idea was that the wood "cured" over the years, making ever more exquisite salads. Actually, the dressing seeped into the wood and the oil turned hideously rancid, so the bowls stank to high heaven.

> A sly foodie named George Rector had simply hoaxed the whole country. He'd invented the myth of the wooden salad bowl to spice up a story in the Sept. 5, 1936, issue of the Saturday Evening Post.

> Playing on Americans' fear of snobbish French gourmets, he painted green salad as the most finicky dish of all. And the secret of the perfect salad? Rubbing a clove of garlic on a wooden bowl, which would give just enough garlic flavor but not (horrors!) too much . . . and then never washing the bowl.

> The French themselves had never believed any such thing. In fact, Parisian gourmets didn't even like garlic in their salads--as Rector knew perfectly well, since he'd worked in Parisian restaurants. In his cookbooks, he had published garlic-free French salad recipes.

Sounds like exactly the same belief.