A shout from the amen pew.

Doc Reynolds tumped over an ant's nest yesterday when he got into the highly controversial topic of cookware.

Fritz Schranck, though, has a much better idea than all that fancy-pants stuff--first, he dropped by "The K" and picked up one of Martha Stewart's fancy-but-not-pricey-pants versions of the copper clad cookery, and then almost in passing noted what is the true gem of his collection:

[...] one I’ve been using for 25 years, a 10 ½-inch cast iron skillet that my wife and I both love. [...]

Folks, if you want to REALLY cook, get yourself a big iron skillet. They're good for frying, sauteing, searing, baking, and hitting people. Thus, they combine the hearty masculine qualities of being useful as both tools of sustenance as well as a weapon. Fritz continues:

[...] For preparing most of my Creole/Cajun recipes, I rely on an 8-quart cast-iron dutch oven that we’ve owned for over 20 years.

Besides being nearly impossible to destroy, there are also some health benefits to using these low-cost cast-iron pans. Cooking slightly acidic foods such as tomatoes leeches some of the iron out of the dutch oven and skillet and therefore helps prevent anemia to some small extent.

The one common element to all these pans is their relative weight. It’s next to impossible to cook food properly if the pan’s bottom is so thin that the heat transfers both too quickly and too unevenly. [...]

Yet more virtues--the health benefit is especially important, because if you're anemic, it's much harder to whang someone a good lick.

Anyway, before you go out and load up on Calphalon, first buy yourself a good set of iron skillets.

Speaking of which, New Year's dinner at Chez Possum this year will be black-eyed peas, turnip greens, country-style ribs, and cornbread cooked in my iron skillet.
posted by Terry at 11:09:00 AM