I just cook on it everyday, olive or cooking oil, never scrape it clean, just wash with hot water. Same way my grandma did. Nothing sticks.
Maybe this is overcomplicating things.
Maybe this is overcomplicating things.
Oh, and a bit of dish soap is fine, too. Doesn't seem to bother the pan any.
There's a whole vaguely macho culture around cast iron and the fiddly rituals for producing the perfect surface, but you can just ignore all that and cook on the things and they're fine.
Additionally, there is something else I wonder about: people often seem to be recommended those pans "requiring" seasoning from a health-conscious perspective, but to me it seems like everything that is involved in seasoning could be worse than just using a non-stick Teflon or ceramic pan to begin with. I mean, isn't seasoning basically burning oil and making a layer of burnt stuff at the bottom of your pan? Can't this stuff flake into your food? I can't find much about this on the internet, so maybe I'm wrong, but it just doesn't feel right to me.
One thing that does make a huge difference though, is the surface finish of the cast iron. I had a fancy new pan that was basically unusable compared to some old flea market finds, because it had the raw cast surface, while the old ones had been ground smooth. Ended up taking an angle grinder to it (after which the raw metal was obviously exposed, and it did need seasoning) and the difference is night and day!