Cast iron and hand-forged carbon steel, left exactly as heat and hammer made them. No coating to fail — nothing stands between the pan and the fire.
Short answer: Cooking tomato sauce in cast iron is fine for a quick sauce or a short simmer in a well-seasoned cast iron or carbon steel pan. America’s Test Kitchen tested this properly: no metallic taste at 15 minutes, a mild one by 30. For most healthy people, the iron that leaches in isn’t a…
Short answer: Cast iron on induction works without much to worry about. Its weight and thickness make warping rare, though it can develop uneven hot spots. Thin carbon steel is the real risk. Some pans genuinely do warp on induction, but it comes down to the pan’s gauge and how you heat it, not a…
Cast iron surface sanded to 80-grit next to an unsanded rough sand-cast surface
Short answer: Use a refined, neutral, high-smoke-point oil, grapeseed is a strong practical choice, applied in very thin coats. Flaxseed oil, still widely recommended from a popular method that’s over a decade old, is chemically a weaker choice for this specific job: it’s more prone to a brittle cure, and its low smoke point means…
Ask ten people why cast iron beats carbon steel and you’ll hear the same three claims, delivered with total confidence and zero evidence behind any of them: it’s heavier, it holds heat better, and it’s basically indestructible. Two of those are roughly true. The third one is true for reasons almost nobody gets right, and…