A Pan for All Seasons

     Last night I browned some pork chops in my cast iron frying pan.  It was a Christmas gift from my family and it will be a cherished treasure for a long, long time.  Cast iron is an amazing material. 
     Recently in a Time magazine article Josh Ozersky spoke in glowing terms of a similar pan in his possession that he purchased in Jersey City over 20 years ago.  It was manufactured and distributed by the Lodge Manufacturing Co., a  116 year old family owned business located in South Pittsburg, Tennessee by Joseph Lodge.  Many of their original products, now over a century old, are still in use.  And in these days of high tech must have gadgets the primeval pan is making a comeback.  Cast iron cookware sales have grown from 4% of the cookware market to 10% in the past decade and last year, Ozersky writes, industry sales reached $114 million.
     And the reasons are obvious, he goes on to say.  "Heavy pans take longer to get hot than thin ones, but they hold their heat longer, and they are, for practical purposes, indestructable.  This pan, this mute dense tool, roots us to our parents and grandparents and the hundreds of generations that came before them...Everyone that was ever made, whether by Lodge or one of the thousands of nameless smithies across America, is basically the same: a heavy unbending piece of metal that picks up a patina with long use and grows to fit the hands that hold it."
     "Iron pans are no good for making Hot Pockets, Lean Cuisines or tofu tetrazzini," Ozersky admits.  "They're made for an elemental kind of cooking that uses whole ingredients and live fire, that has become marginal in the age we live in.  You don't leave them in the sink to soak; you don't even wash them."
     I'm really pleased by the timeless gift I've been given.  Now if I could only learn to cook fried chicken in it.