BY Mary Frances Knapp

Are Cast Iron Skillets Worth the Trouble?

Food discourse is fickle, but one piece of cookware is searing our brains: cast iron skillets.

At a time when we’re in our kitchens more but many of us are broke, we wanna know, once and for all: Is cast iron worth the hype? We asked two chefs, Rasheeda McCallum and Isaac Toups.

“Cast iron pans originated around 220 AD in the Han dynasty. They became widely used all over Europe by the 16th century. My favorite thing about cast iron is the durability.”

Toups grew up in the heart of Cajun country and is chef at Toups’ Meatery in New Orleans. He’s also a three-time semi-finalist for the coveted James Beard Award “Best Chef in the South.”. He’s the perfect person to cut through the cast iron BS—especially on the seasoning process.

“A lot of people get the wrong idea of cast iron pans thinking they are dirty because of the curing process, in which you intentionally leave oil on the outside of the pan after each use. Also, people don’t realize the multiple uses of cast iron."

McCallum co-signs their versatility. “My family is 100-percent Jamaican, and we call cast iron 'dutchies' in our country, which, essentially, is a Dutch pot made up of 100-percent cast iron. We used our style of cast iron skillets to pan fry, deep fry, stew, and even bake.”

McCallum and Toups’ declarations of versatility helps save cast irons from the weirdly polarizing, manly-man cis-core mythology it’s fallen into. “For many men,” explains Jessica Furseth,“[it’s] more than a cooking utensil – it’s a lifestyle.”

“Clearly,” she says, “the cast iron internet is a stereotypically ‘masculine’ space.’” Our cast iron does so much more than serve some He-Man bender, and we need only look to other, innovative chefs bringing them into their cooking ethos.

At the heart of McCallum’s many achievements is a commitment to community care. McCallum founded the Black Chef Movement in NYC to spearhead a project that “focuses on feeding Black Lives Matters activists." So, yeah, her cast iron has been busy. But that’s what it's cut out for.

“I like them because they're all hand-made,” she says specifically of dutchies. “They're usually at least 12 inches wide in circumference, and durable enough to be used outside over an open fire. After cooking, be sure to oil your pan to seal in all that flavor.”

For recommendations on cast iron skillets for both beginners and advanced chefs, click below.

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