Cast Iron Cookware: Still Used Outside of North America?

[hathor]

Over on the Tuscany cooking thread we've had a little side discussion on cast iron cookware.

Here's the question: is this a North American thing, or do other parts of the world cook in cast iron? Cast iron griddles will show up in some Italian recipes, but that's about it. Old drawings show plenty of cast iron pots hanging over the fire, so did everybody throw out their pots when Teflon was invented?

[Lisa1349]

Doesn't the Staub company specialize in Cast Iron? They're from France. They make both traditional cast iron and enameled cast iron. There's also Le Creuset. Early Pizzelle presses were also cast iron.

Edited September 27, 2007 by Lisa1349 (log)

[Fat Guy]

Are you talking specifically about unfinished cast-iron cookware? Because cast-iron cookware is pretty popular in Europe, it just tends to be enameled in the manner of Le Creuset and Staub.

[Morten]

Enamaled and not-enamaled pots and pans is pretty normal in Denmark. I have a frying pan that my grandmother had and i since has gotten from my mother. Had it for close to 20 year...

[andiesenji]

I have some cast iron pots, sauce pots, actually, that were made in England in the 1890s.

I think the same style was made at least into the 1950s.

[Fat Guy]

Needless to say, cast-iron cookware is an ancient technology. You can go to various museums and see cast-iron pots dating way back, from all over the world. And I think up through the 19th and into the 20th Century cast-iron cookware was common throughout the industrialized world, though I'd have to check a real source to be sure of that. Today, however, I'm not aware of a European manufacturer of unfinished (aka bare) cast-iron cookware. Maybe there is one, and if so I'd love to get my hands on some stuff to see how it compares to the American product, but I've not heard of one. What I've seen (mostly in France and England, which is where I've spent the most time in kitchen stores) is 1- enameled cast-iron cookware in the typical Le Creuset and Staub styles, 2- matte-enameled cast-iron cookware, which has a rustic unfinished-like appearance but is not actually unfinished (Staub makes this, and Le Creuset has picked up the style as an option), and 3- various forms of unfinished steel (French steel, blue steel) that behave a lot like unfinished cast-iron in that they need to be seasoned and cared for the same way, but they're not actually cast or nearly as heavy as a standard-issue Lodge utensil.

[Morten]

This link is pretty intersting in regard to this:

Link about cauldrons

[andiesenji]

Here are a couple of my English sauce pots. I don't know when they stopped making these.

I remember them from when I was a small child and I was born in 1939.

They are very heavy - the sidewalls are somewhat thinner than American-made pots, but the bottoms are thicker.

I have several and they all have this distinctive "barrel" shape. One is perhaps twice the size of the larger one in the photo - I can't lift or even move it without help. It has a stubby secondary handle on the side opposite the main handle and it too is hollow and will accept a tapered stick.

Note that the measurements cast into the bottom, refers to "Imperial" pints and quarts.

The large one has a tin lining and one can see the tin has puddled in the center of the bottom. This was probably done in the home back in the late '40s. It was common to buy tinning kits for cookware. I saw it done many times, it was a cinch on a wood/coal stove, just pull up one of the lids in the stovetop and place the pot or kettle so it was exposed directly to the fire, then open one or more of the air intakes to increase the temp.

On these pots the handles are hollow so a tapered "broomstick" can be banged into the handle to give more leverage. Our cook kept the sticks in a bucket of water next to the stove so the wood would swell and fit more snugly in the handle.

Edited September 29, 2007 by andiesenji (log)

[hathor]

Sorry, I haven't had internet service for the past day or so....

Andiesenji, those pots are simply beautiful. Amazing.

Most of what people are saying refers to northern Europe, yes?

FG, I've also seen those same pots that you describe in French cookware stores, and nothing comparable in Italy.

[Adam Balic]

Over on the Tuscany cooking thread we've had a little side discussion on cast iron cookware.

Here's the question: is this a North American thing, or do other parts of the world cook in cast iron? Cast iron griddles will show up in some Italian recipes, but that's about it.  Old drawings show plenty of cast iron pots hanging over the fire, so did everybody throw out their pots when Teflon was invented?

←

A lot of the images of pots were most likely not cast iron, large scale use of cast iron for domestic use didn't really take off until the middle of the 18th century. It was relatively expensive to make, relatively fragile, reactive with many foods and needed special care. Even in northern Europe, earthenware or stoneware was cheaper and easier to make. If you broke it, it is easy enough to replace. The Industrial revolution didn't occur for many countries until quite recently and you really nead this sort of infrustructure to produce cast iron domestic vessels cheaply.

Cast iron is better then most ceramics for large vessels, but copper is lighter and easier to work. Large amounts of domestic copper vessels were requisitioned in Italy during WWII so old items are rare and can be very expensive, I'm not sure that this was the case for iron vessels, but it so it would have altered the way that people cooked.

On the other hand, when cast iron became cheaper to produce it was much better for people that were relatively mobile and where the infrastructure for large scale ceramic production was not in place. At my grandparents farm in Australia (settled in the 1850's) there are large amounts of cast iron pot remains. I imagine this is the same in the USA an Canada.

In camping stores in Australia, for a few dollars you can still buy cast iron cooking pots etc, known as "Dutch Ovens" for the most part.

[hathor]

Adam, aside from the historical interest, do people still use cast iron pots on a regular basis in Australia?

Excellent history lesson this morning, thanks, I enjoyed it. Lugging around stone pots could not have been easy.

[Adam Balic]

Unsealed cast iron? Not really, only for camping and this is getting less common. Lots of other materials have better cooking properties and are easier to use.

Lots of people use the enameled cast iron for cooking in Australia and at least in Chianti this is also the case now (my sister in law received a huge amount of Le Creuset from the local commune as a wedding present).

[broadway]

Here are a couple of my English sauce pots.  I don't know when they stopped making these.

I remember them from when I was a small child and I was born in 1939. 

.......

From the registered number the design dates from 1905. It is surprising how quickly they have disappeared. I don't rememeber them at all and I was born in 1954. I expect a large number would have been melted down in England during the war.

[takadi]

Unsealed cast iron? Not really, only for camping and this is getting less common. Lots of other materials have better cooking properties and are easier to use.

←

Really? Everybody I talked to about cast iron swears by it and its properties. Especially the nonstick seasoning that "beats out any teflon pan"

[Adam Balic]

Unsealed cast iron? Not really, only for camping and this is getting less common. Lots of other materials have better cooking properties and are easier to use.

←

Really? Everybody I talked to about cast iron swears by it and its properties. Especially the nonstick seasoning that "beats out any teflon pan"

←

There is an excellent discussion on the relative merits of various types of cookware here.

[takadi]

Yes I've read that already (three times in fact). I'm just stating testimony from avid cast iron users. Subjective opinions aren't measured by units and numbers

[Adam Balic]

Feel free to use un-sealed cast iron cooking vessels as much as you wish. I collect it and use it, along with other items of kitchenalia. I suggest you don't try to make a batch of strawberry jam in them though.

[Richard Kilgore]

Here is a link that shows traditional cast iron Potjie pots, which the site states were brought to South Africa by the English and Dutch in the late middle ages. They are round bellied with three legs that are longer than those on my Lodge camping Dutch ovens. A friend who I occassionally do outdoor cast-iron cooking with uses one of these for making chili.

[Adam Balic]

Here is a link that shows traditional cast iron Potjie pots, which the site states were brought to South Africa by the English and Dutch in the late middle ages. They are round bellied with three legs that are longer than those on my Lodge camping Dutch ovens. A friend who I occassionally do outdoor cast-iron cooking with uses one of these for making chili.

←

Richard, those are fantastic looking pots. I would love one to play about with.

This site gives some examples of the Welsh equivalents and gives an idea of how they were used in situ. In Scottish prints of domestic scenes you would see a cauldron like these suspended next to a griddle pan. Ironically it was the development of the cast-iron range that put an end to this type of domestic arrangment.

A large pot suspened from a chain over a central hearth was a common arrangement throughout Europe. Here can be seen the remains of my families hearth in Croatia.

[zoe b]

and let's not forget Belgium--

http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?wo...&searchid=21050

Here's some info about Marcel Broodthaer's Casserole with Closed Mussels--depicting Belgium's national dish--no frites shown, unfortunately.

Zoe

Edited October 2, 2007 by zoe b (log)

[andiesenji]

I was born and raised on a fairly modern farm in western Kentucky but many of the local farmers, just as in all of the rural south, used the huge old cast iron kettles or pots, outside over open fires, for heating water for laundry and also for making the lye soap that was still commonly in use in the last half of the '40s and into the early '50s.

The same pots were used for rendering lard and for other cooking. People searching around some of the old homesteads, often find single "canoe paddles" but these were actually laundry "dashers" used to move the sheets and clothes around in the hot water. Of course they were also used when rendering lard. The lye soap was a strong disinfectant and there were few germs that could live in boiling lard!

[andiesenji]

Also, in reference to European cast iron vessels, an iron age prize for the raiding Danes, etc., was the capture of an experienced smith, who knew how to work iron.

Among the Skandinavians, a man who could provide an iron pot was assured of getting a fine wife and a young woman, no matter what her looks, with an iron pot as part of her dowry, had her choice of husbands.

Edited October 2, 2007 by andiesenji (log)