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Comment by asoneth | Hacker News Reader

I have been learning how to season, cook with, and clean cast iron. As someone who did not grow up using it it’s definitely not intuitive. The other challenge is that I either have to lock it away or teach everyone else in the household how to care for it. At various points in my life I’ve had coatings ruined by roommates, partners, guests, and housekeepers who did things that seemed perfectly sensible like letting it soak in soapy water.

It's similar to how my partner has a stainless steel pan that I avoid using because I have not had the bandwidth to internalize the right ratio of heat, time, and oil to cook things on it without burning/sticking, whereas they have no issue with it. It's a good reminder not to take internalized skill for granted.

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Soapy water won't break down the molecularly bonded fat and iron on your cast iron. If you mistake leftover grease for seasoning, then sure, soapy water will get rid of it.

The trick to not sticking on steel pan is just preheating it properly. A drop of water should dance on a properly heated steel pan and things won't stick. Just let it get hot enough.

> Soapy water won't break down the molecularly bonded fat and iron on your cast iron.

In that case I'm not sure what the exact mechanism was. But I know that after others have used/cleaned a seemingly well-seasoned pan I've had to deal with chips, flakes, and/or rust and had to go back through the whole annoying seasoning process. And of course it's entirely possible that despite carefully following instructions that I've done the seasoning wrong -- chemistry is the only class I ever flunked.

> A drop of water should dance on a properly heated steel pan and things won't stick.

My partner made a similar recommendation. It sounds trivially easy but for whatever reason I have not managed to make it work. Given that cast iron (generally) works fine for me I've had minimal motivation to learn the idiosyncrasies of another material, though I would like to give it another shot at some point.

It's gaslighting by the cast iron/stainless steel crowd, pure and simple.

I've talked to multiple experienced and home chefs about this disconnect and they've admitted two things:

1) cooking on a screaming hot pan is possible of course. It's how all professional kitchens work. But it's way harder! You have to pay close attention & the timing for error is very small. Cooking at lower heat on Teflon lets you make more adjustments.

2) After doing everything perfectly, and seasoning perfectly, for the same heat you ABSOLUTELY still need more of some oil or butter on a cast iron or stainless steel then you would for an equivalent Teflon pan. This is non-negotiable.

you can season stainless steel just like you season cast iron, it just requires more coats to hold and will need to be repeated more often. I've seasoned my skillets and frying pans. I'd never bother with my sauce pans bc they get acidic stuff like vinegar for poached eggs, tomato sauce, or fruit, but they're steel anyway so I can just scrub them with wire wool.

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