I feel compelled to back you up on this one. You mention your experience with cast iron, and 20 semi-pro internet chefs jump all over you to gaslight you with "you just didn't season it properly bro"

No. I polymerized it with the grapeseed oil. I tried it with sunflower oil. I polymerized until my apartment swirled with smoke. I wiped it down with nothing besides a paper towel and water. I followed youtube guides.

Nothing worked, and that goddamn pan would lose slickness in the heavily-used center every other day. Plus, I'd leave it unused for a few weeks while traveling, and upon returning, it'd be covered in rust! This happened with at least 3 different pans from 2 different manufacturers.

Low-maintenance my ass.

once cast iron is properly seasoned it maintains very well, and can last for generations! and they are dirt cheap to boot. but yes there is a little learning curve. they are heavy, so use two hands when handling. it must be seasoned (many come preseasoned) and never put it in a dishwasher for example -- but when properly seasoned the nonstick properties are so effective food just rinses off. i encourage everyone who cooks to try one!

You know it is REALLY HARD to figure out if a non-stick coating is free of teflon-and-friends. Lots of things called "ceramic" might not be free of pfoa/pfte/etc

(this is a pain when you have parrots, because one overheated pan, and all birds in the house - big and small - will die)

As one example, I bought some hexclad pans. They had very strong wording about their use of teflon:

https://hexclad.com/blogs/posts/pfoa-free

when you try to figure out what their coating is, you are told:

"We’ve used a high-grade non-toxic Japanese coating infused with diamond dust for extra toughness." (https://hexclad.com/pages/hexclad-science)

and... well keep digging.

Finally you can find this:

Q: Are your pans free of PTFE?

A: Our pans are PFOA free but contain some PTFE. PTFE is in over 95% of all nonstick cookware including our ceramic-based nonstick. PTFE is safe and inert. In fact, it is used in surgical matches meshes, dental implants and heart stents which are all implanted in the body. We do not use PFOA chemicals and other chemicals that gave many other nonstick pans a bad name. Why do we use some PTFE? Sadly, non-PTFE nonstick cookware does not work well for long periods of time. In fact, in our tests, the largest non-PTFE nonstick in the world only held up for 45 minutes of consecutive use.

https://hexcladcommercial.com/pages/frequently-asked-questio...

What's especially ridiculous is that the "good" hexclad sets you can get at costco also put this coating on the BOTTOM of the pan, against the flame or burner! High temperature is the achilles heel for these chemicals.

took them back.

EDIT: also https://www.consumerreports.org/toxic-chemicals-substances/y...

Carbon steel pans aren't as much work as cast iron, but still extremely durable. They're lighter, often come pre-seasoned but are easier to season than cast iron, are naturally non-stick, heats very quickly, and cleans easy.

The only downside is that you have to wash them right away, dry them thoroughly. Cooking with a lot of acidic sauces will mean you'll likely have season them again.

If you’re cooking pancakes, you just wipe it off with some soap and rinse while it’s still warm, and don’t need to do anything else. For other cooking you sometimes need a quick pass with a nylon scraper or something, but it’s still pretty quick and easy.

People mostly really get into trouble when they try to stew tomatoes or something like that (I just keep a steel pan around for really acidic stuff).

You might prefer carbon steel to cast iron.

Cast iron is easy if you only clean with warm water and chainmail, which can be purchased on Amazon for under $10.

I only see people struggle with cast iron when they think it must be cleaned with soap until it’s shiny. That’s an invitation for rust and problems.

Cast iron skillets just take a bit of getting used and are then zero maintenance and last for ever. The problems people have with them are usually due to trying to season them and doing it so badly (due to abundant online misinformation) they'd have been better off not doing it at all.

Care is a big component as well. The real power of cast iron is that you can renew the coating when it wears off by re-seasoning the pan. Using a drying oil like flax, you coat the pan and heat the oil until it starts smoking, then wait for it to stop smoking. Repeat this process a couple of times and you have a durable non-stick surface again.

If you ever have the surface roughen up you can also strip the old seasoning by covering it in oven cleaner and heating it to cleaning temperature. The easiest way to do this is to stick it in an oven on high.

I’ve had the same frying pan for 10 years now and this is how I keep it non-stick.

Consider butter instead of oil for pancakes. The water content of the butter boils between the pancake and the pan. The escaping water vapor pushes them apart, which helps prevent the pancake from sticking.

Don't overthink it. Look up America's Test Kitchen videos on cast iron pans. They probably have one to recommend the best one for the $$ and how to take care of it.

I have an old school cast iron skillet and pot. I wish I'd watched videos because newer types of cast iron apparently has a smooth finish and is thinner and lighter. When new, I washed it with soap and water, dried it, added a nice and thin layer of olive oil all around wiped it with a kitchen towel to take off the excess, then baked it for half an hour. Let it cool. Repeated that once or twice. You can even just heat it on a stove top.

Once I'm done cooking something, I rinse scrub and rinse with warm water to get all the food off and add a touch of oil. A little goes a long way.

That's all, really. It isn't complicated or particularly laborious. It just weighs a fair bit - it'll take your hands a couple of weeks to get stronger and then you won't care.

You don't want to get it super hot (the oil/butter should not smoke). Medium heat is fine. They do take a long time to warm up to a uniform steady state temperature though (this is both an advantage and a disadvantage, since it means the temperature stays stable as you cook).

For instance, when making pancakes, my first step is putting the griddle on the range. Next, I start making the batter.

Of course, you can set the range to high and heat it up really fast, but then you end up risking overheating it.

Animal fats. Not vegetable oils. Vegetable oils polymerize to a sticky substance. Animal fats carbonize and protect the metal. Also using a metal spatula is a must in cast iron. The metal spatula keeps the surface smooth which enhances the non-stick property. Also wash after use and spread a little fat in it to prevent rusting. Don't scour. Just wash with soap and water.

In my experience all non-stick strategies are a hoax, including teflon XD

Oh, huh. It certainly seems not. That is disappointing.

> There's definite leaching of plastic compounds into food, which gets exacerbated when heated. My concern is the number of unknown unknowns. BPA became a big part of the consciousness a few years ago, and now it's PFAs, but what else?

PFAS and BPA are not used for (multi-use) food containers I think. Don't get me wrong! Avoiding throwaway packaging, where possible, absolutely makes sense. I specifically mean to find the culprit with Tupperware (or multi-use plastic food containers in general).

> My general view is that glass is super-durable, microwave-safe (I would never microwave Tupperware), and the cost tradeoff is minor, so it seems worthwhile.

Glass breaks faster than plastic containers (usually). I still use glass containers, but I am always aware that they break relatively easily.

Regarding microwave-use I am with you. Not a fan of microwaving plastic, even if it is safe for many plastic materials (the term plastic is vague I admit).