<story><title>Chemistry of Cast Iron Seasoning (2010)</title><url>http://sherylcanter.com/wordpress/2010/01/a-science-based-technique-for-seasoning-cast-iron/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>bjt</author><text>I saw this post a few years ago.  Having read her other two posts on seasoning cast iron, I came to the conclusion that she was just making the science up as she went along.&lt;p&gt;In &amp;quot;Perfect Popovers&amp;quot; [1] she advises Avocado Oil for its high smoke point, out of fear that letting the oil smoke will release carcinogenic free radicals into your food.&lt;p&gt;Then in this &amp;quot;Science-Based How-To&amp;quot; (three weeks later) she switches to flaxseed oil and suddenly isn&amp;#x27;t concerned about the free radicals anymore.&lt;p&gt;There is no hypothesis testing, and there are no measurements of free radicals or polymerization.  It&amp;#x27;s all conjecture.&lt;p&gt;Her third post [2] calls out &amp;quot;black rust&amp;quot;&amp;#x2F;magnetite as a key component of seasoning cast iron, because &amp;quot;someone sent me some links&amp;quot;.  The links are not provided.&lt;p&gt;I have no problem with her blogging about her experiences seasoning cast iron, but what she&amp;#x27;s doing is not science, and it is misleading to call it &amp;quot;science based&amp;quot;.  If the author were a chemist, biologist, or nutritionist, I could defer to her education and wouldn&amp;#x27;t be writing this comment.  But her bio [3] doesn&amp;#x27;t indicate any such training.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http://sherylcanter.com/wordpress/2010/01/perfect-popovers-and-how-to-clean-reseason-cast-iron/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;sherylcanter.com&amp;#x2F;wordpress&amp;#x2F;2010&amp;#x2F;01&amp;#x2F;perfect-popovers-a...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;http://sherylcanter.com/wordpress/2010/02/black-rust-and-cast-iron-seasoning/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;sherylcanter.com&amp;#x2F;wordpress&amp;#x2F;2010&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;black-rust-and-cas...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[3] &lt;a href=&quot;http://sherylcanter.com/background.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;sherylcanter.com&amp;#x2F;background.php&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Chemistry of Cast Iron Seasoning (2010)</title><url>http://sherylcanter.com/wordpress/2010/01/a-science-based-technique-for-seasoning-cast-iron/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>JASchilz</author><text>When I first got into cast iron, I spent a lot of time on oven-seasoning. It turns out that your daily practice is much more important than that oven seasoning, and the two important steps are:&lt;p&gt;1. Get the oil hot before you add any foods.&lt;p&gt;2. Use a sheet-metal spatula&amp;#x2F;flipper&lt;p&gt;Humanity has known for a long time that when you get your cooking oil hot, it repels food instead of binding it to the cooking surface; but the amateur cook has forgotten because of a reliance on non-stick surfaces.&lt;p&gt;The sheet-metal spatula&amp;#x2F;flipper lets you clean the cast iron with each pass of the tool. A rubber&amp;#x2F;wooden tool will leave small, burnt on bits of food, which accumulate more bits of food; a sheet-metal tool with scrape those off before they become a problem. Also, a sheet-metal spatula will scrape the roughness of the cast-iron from the bottom of your pan over the course of decades, moving you towards that inky-black mirror of grandma&amp;#x27;s old pans.&lt;p&gt;I can cook anything on my cast iron, just by following those steps, even fried eggs: the surface is totally non-stick. And cleaning is simple too: sometimes I&amp;#x27;ll make a few passes with the spatula to scrape off any food that has dried on, but that&amp;#x27;s all I ever do.</text></comment>