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sled_22

Cast iron cookware

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Is anyone on here cast iron junkies like myself??? I picked a couple pans today and wanted to see if anyone can ID the small pan. It says “Italian illegiable skillet”. The other is a Wagner #8 chicken cooker. $30. F223D95C-57DF-42B4-9717-2C89300F6C4A.jpeg

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I have a few cast iron pans and pots , I see a lot when hitting the flea markets and garage sales  , don't know anything about them     -----   I collect Magna-Lite when  see them , they can cost as much as $300 for one roaster pot 

 

Use to like to watch a TV show about a guy that cooked a full course meal every week on a camp fire with cast iron pots 

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i would like to know more about seasoning the skillet.

i would think it makes for a more even temperature when cooking, using iron. probably better to ingest iron then Teflon, of whatever that non-stick stuff in made of. besides, i'm a bit iron deficient.

i might not need iron pills. 😀

Edited by LedFTed
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12 hours ago, LedFTed said:

i would like to know more about seasoning the skillet.

i would think it makes for a more even temperature when cooking, using iron. probably better to ingest iron then Teflon, of whatever that non-stick stuff in made of. besides, i'm a bit iron deficient.

i might not need iron pills. 😀

This may be interesting to you Ted

https://www.lodgecastiron.com/sites/default/files/2019-09/All About Seasoning_Download_DIGITAL.pdf

 

My 8qt antique no-name Dutch Oven that i use couple times a month for stew or roast. I have some Wagner

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Edited by Goober
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15 hours ago, LedFTed said:

i would like to know more about seasoning the skillet.

i would think it makes for a more even temperature when cooking, using iron. probably better to ingest iron then Teflon, of whatever that non-stick stuff in made of. besides, i'm a bit iron deficient.

i might not need iron pills. 😀

I like using bacon grease for seasoning. After a couple lbs of bacon in my 12” lodge pan I strain it and jar it. Then when it’s lard consistency cooled, I baste it all over the pan and bake it at 200 degrees in the oven or smoker for a few hours. Then repeat. A couple times depending on the piece. 
The older stuff had a much smoother finish on the cooking surface which means less nooks and crannies for seasoning to hold. Sometimes they take an extra bake or two. 
All the newer stuff is much more of a rough cooking surface and seasons after one bake. 
lodge has even said they use a rougher finish so they can more easily pre-season their cook ware and mass produce it. My new lodge sucks for anything not cooked in oil. I have a couple smaller Wagner’s that fry over easy eggs better than any non-stick junk I’ve ever had. 

Edited by sled_22
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Here’s my #5 Wagner. This will fry eggs nooooo stick. It could use another seasoning. Which I’ll do when I get those other two ready and cleaned up. They need a vinegar bath for a couple days first. 

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16 hours ago, sled_22 said:

I like using bacon grease for seasoning. After a couple lbs of bacon in my 12” lodge pan I strain it and jar it. Then when it’s lard consistency cooled, I baste it all over the pan and bake it at 200 degrees in the oven or smoker for a few hours. Then repeat. A couple times depending on the piece. 

 

thats how i do my Dutch, and my cornbread cast iron skillets, never had a pan of cornbread stick as far back as i can recall, I've even seasoned them with plain cooking oil. 

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On 4/3/2021 at 9:22 AM, Goober said:

This may be interesting to you Ted

https://www.lodgecastiron.com/sites/default/files/2019-09/All About Seasoning_Download_DIGITAL.pdf

 

My 8qt antique no-name Dutch Oven that i use couple times a month for stew or roast. I have some Wagner

BE868379-35D7-471C-9904-F0DDDC42F2E4.jpeg

F95EA33D-5D69-4563-A6DB-3485F30FB0A7.jpeg

Yep! is sure does. one site i visited said flax seed is the best, season at 500. that aint working out so well. 🤢

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bacon grease is the best, as sled mentioned my grandmother was a home economiecs teacher back in the 60-80's, and always used bacon grease for cast iron baking cook ware, instill do to this day, the trick is never use dish soap for cleaning them, and never put them in a dish washer. 

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21 hours ago, LedFTed said:

Yep! is sure does. one site i visited said flax seed is the best, season at 500. that aint working out so well. 🤢

Seems the flax seed oil would be least effective having the lowest smoke point, while safflower oil has smoke point at 500F. I’m going to use safflower oil from now on.  

i can wipe it on the upside down in the oven as described 
I like pork fat but I don’t always have it.

 

well maybe i misread the chart it says to bake the cookware at the oil’s smoking temp. So you could season your cookware with flaxseed at 225 —easier?

run with the fan on tho, lols!

Edited by Goober
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8 hours ago, Goober said:

Seems the flax seed oil would be least effective having the lowest smoke point, while safflower oil has smoke point at 500F. I’m going to use safflower oil from now on.  

i can wipe it on the upside down in the oven as described 
I like pork fat but I don’t always have it.

 

well maybe i misread the chart it says to bake the cookware at the oil’s smoking temp. So you could season your cookware with flaxseed at 225 —easier?

run with the fan on tho, lols!

the oven has slots in the door. so, i taped them shut, still ran the exhaust fan, an the smell was cut way down. i aint sure about flax-seed oil at a lower temperature. i got to recheck the smoking point.

 i got a new Lodge 9, an didnt quite trust it, so, if it did work, before i messed with it, it dont now.. i got 4 or 5 though, that need work, i saved them from going to the goodwill.

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I have a Lodge Dutch Oven I bought several years ago(one with ring on top to do coals over campfire). Cook cobbler in in a couple times a year. We have a Wagner Skillet we inherited from my wife's grandparents too. Know nothing about it but we used it when we had gas stove. Smooth top electric it doesn't work with so it sits in our camping stuff til we come back to gas at the house.

 

Around here, used, rusty skillets at Antique malls go for 75+ bucks. I went to a garage sale one time and everything was up there. Friend bought like a 24" cast iron skillet for 5 bucks, all rusty, at a flea market and has used it religiiously since. I haven't been able to find those kind of deals unfortunately due to all the antiquer's out there trying to stock their booths at the malls.

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I love my cast iron.  I have huge Lodge skillet I got for $4 (walmart clearance) and a couple of smaller skillets that Dad had.  No markings on those, but they are good heavy cast iron, not chinese crap.

 

I season mine with bacon grease as well.  I have them slick as can be now.  Cook breakfast almost every Saturday in them, and just wipe them out with a paper towel when done.

 

When buying used cast iron, inspect it carefully.  A lot of guys will use cast iron to melt lead for casting bullets.  You don't want to eat out of one of those!

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On 4/5/2021 at 6:43 PM, 87Iroc said:

I have a Lodge Dutch Oven I bought several years ago(one with ring on top to do coals over campfire). Cook cobbler in in a couple times a year. We have a Wagner Skillet we inherited from my wife's grandparents too. Know nothing about it but we used it when we had gas stove. Smooth top electric it doesn't work with so it sits in our camping stuff til we come back to gas at the house.

 

Around here, used, rusty skillets at Antique malls go for 75+ bucks. I went to a garage sale one time and everything was up there. Friend bought like a 24" cast iron skillet for 5 bucks, all rusty, at a flea market and has used it religiiously since. I haven't been able to find those kind of deals unfortunately due to all the antiquer's out there trying to stock their booths at the malls.

the stove here is smooth top electric. the temp keeps going off an on, so its hard to cook anything, consistent.. its always not enough heat, or too much heat. the stove aint no better.

give me one of those old 6 to 8 button electrics. course ya know ya can always adjust the gas burners. i still think even they would work better, with a  iron plate over the burner.

 just thinking out loud.

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On 4/3/2021 at 12:57 PM, sled_22 said:

Here’s my #5 Wagner. This will fry eggs nooooo stick. It could use another seasoning. Which I’ll do when I get those other two ready and cleaned up. They need a vinegar bath for a couple days first. 

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Well; just a couple of questions, or so, if ya dont mind. what kind of vinegar is best for soaking, white or apple. and is there a preference of bacon grease, lastly what do ya use to strain the grease? 

🙂

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2 minutes ago, LedFTed said:

Well; just a couple of questions, or so, if ya dont mind. what kind of vinegar is best for soaking, white or apple. and is there a preference of bacon grease, lastly what do ya use to strain the grease? 

🙂

White vinegar for rust removal.

bacon grease = thick cut wrights (previously mentioned on the food thread)

strainer = i use a fine stainless steel kitchen sink drain strainer. Or i suppose a shower strainer for hair. I would recommend buying a new one and not the one in your bathtub.

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I know this is a cast iron  thread , here is a old school cast aluminum Guardian  fish frying pot I picked up for $5 , with a quickie home made cover , which I am not too happy with the wood handle  , but it is going to work !!! 

 

 

I cleaned the inside well with some Bar Keeper's Friend , cleaned a little on the outside , but stopped ,  kind of like the way it looks blacked out , looks like many a fish or chickens were fried in it ----- hope to use it soon 

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mators and stuff, will leave pits in your aluminum cooking stuff. too much acid. any food that is acid based will eat at the aluminum, causing pits in the cookware. aint so sure about alkaline food stuffs.  ya might ponder where that aluminum goes.

the Romans, used to eat with lead utensils, least the rich, or the politicians. 🙂

ya gotta think what Nero used to eat with., he was nuttier than a fruit cake.

the question is; could he really play the fiddle?

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Not sure how true this is but I've heard a man buying his wife cast Iron cookware is a sign he will never cheat on her.  If he does cheat on his wife he stands a good chance of having Wagnerware embossed on his forehead in a mirror image.😳😉

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There are certain types of cookware that inspire an almost religious devotion among people for whom the kitchen is a sacred space. There are the believers in the magic of copper pots and pans. There are those who swear up and down by ceramic cooking vessels. There are the collectors of cast-iron cookware. And then there are perhaps the most devoted of all: the disciples of Magnalite® cookware.

The Magnalite History

Magnalite fandom has been an American tradition for more than 85 years, ever since the Wagner Manufacturing Company of Sidney, Ohio, poured the first cast for WagnerWare Magnalite (Magnalite, for short) in 1934. Made of a unique, durable aluminum and magnesium alloy, these shiny silver kitchen tools have a denser base and thinner sides than most of their cookware counterparts, allowing the pots and pans to first heat more evenly, then distribute that heat faster during the cooking process. (“A cast as thick as two silver dollars!” claims an original Magnalite instruction manual.) Magnalite lids also sport a vapor-tight seal, ensuring that the utmost amount of moisture is retained. Plus, Magnalite cookware can go from stovetop to oven – and refrigerator to stovetop – without missing a beat. Perhaps the most iconic of all the Magnalite pieces is the oval-shaped roaster, a pot that resembles a very stout rocket ship or chunky UFO and is the preferred gumbo-making vessel for many a grand-mère (that’s grandma, Cajun style) across South Louisiana.

A Beloved Connection to South Louisiana

Home cooks across the South – and in particular, Louisiana’s Cajun country – have a soft spot for Magnalite, and sets of the cookware are treasured family heirlooms passed down through generations. Chatty praise of Magnalite can be found everywhere in the South Louisiana online orbit, from local Facebook trading groups in Lafayette to Louisiana State University football message boards, where one poster recently gushed, “What a great cooking utensil! By far the best overall pots ever!” In an interview with Serious Eats about the “everyday sacred” ritual of making gumbo, Cajun cook and photographer Pableaux Johnson describes the comforting scene in his kitchen – one that is typical across Louisiana – featuring Pableaux’s own Turkey Bone Gumbo recipe simmering on the stove in “the oversize Magnalite roaster that’s gingerly straddling two pulsing blue gas jets.”

 

Professional chefs in Louisiana also swear by the cookware, particularly a line of sturdy, professional-grade Magnalite that was introduced in the 1970s. Cajun Chef John Folse’s cookbooks and recipes mention it repeatedly by name. A Magnalite pot used by legendary New Orleans chef Leah Chase is now on permanent display at the National Museum of African American Heritage and Culture in Washington, D.C. And Brenda Placide – the beloved chef-owner of Brenda’s Diner in New Iberia, Louisiana – in an interview with The New Iberian, recalls when actor Tommy Lee Jones asked her to come cook for him in Dallas: “I told him ‘Tommy Lee, I’d need to cook with my Magnalite pot, but I’m not driving and it is too heavy to carry on the plane. They won’t let me on with all my pots.’ He told he was going to send his chauffeur to pick me up.” Now that’s devotion to Magnalite.

A Cajun Heirloom in Uptown New Orleans

This devotion is endearingly evident in the kitchen of New Orleans Chef Melissa Martin, a native of Terrebonne Parish (in the heart of Cajun country) who inherited and regularly uses her grandmother’s well-worn and beloved Magnalite soup pot. In her cookbook, Mosquito Supper Club: Cajun Recipes From a Disappearing Bayou, she explains that she kept this pot sitting on her stove for years “as a bit of comfort and a beautiful reminder of so many delicious meals” – and, we might add, many more meals to come. She shares the Cajun culinary traditions she learned from the women of her family at her restaurant, the Mosquito Supper Club, where she serves up platters of fresh Cajun food family-style to small groups of diners in a repurposed historic home in Uptown New Orleans. She uses her Magnalite pot to make her Monday’s Red Beans and Mosquito Supper Club White Beans recipes, both of which can be found in her cookbook.

 

Cooking Gumbo and Beyond

A big gumbo might be the first dish many people think of when someone whips out a Magnalite roaster, but these are kitchen tools that can cook just about anything: from pinto beans with ham hock, to catfish sauce piquante, to shrimp jambalaya, to red beans and rice. Magnalite is well known for its ability to both sear meat and help ingredients and flavors naturally mingle, which makes it a natural for dishes like white beans with sausage, smothered pork chops and a big pot of jambalaya. Some would argue that there are few things that a Magnalite vessel can’t do.

Keeping it Clean

Like any beloved kitchen tool, Magnalite also has a legendary list of “best practices” for keeping the pots in tip-top, shiny shape. One Magnalite owner’s grandmother swore by cleaning the pots first with a healthy rinse of Coca-Cola, then scrubbing with lemons. Another Magnalite fan agrees that the Coke-and-lemon process works, but that a person should add in a good overnight soak in water to keep the pots and pans looking like new. An instructional YouTube video for how to properly “season” a Magnalite pot uses tissue paper to spread oil around as a conditioner, noting that using paper towels can leave small fibers behind. “I love my Magnalite pot, and I can’t wait to get a second,” the YouTube instructor professes at the video’s end. The attention to detail when caring for Magnalite is almost reverent.

Today, new Magnalite is no longer produced by the Wagner Company or manufactured in the United States. If you weren’t lucky enough to inherit a set of Magnalite from your family, you can join the many Magnalite purists who seek out the original (and, in their minds, better) versions at flea markets, garage sales and trade shows. Etsy and eBay also offer a treasure trove of old-school Magnalite items for sale, with prices ranging somewhere between $60 and $150 depending on the item and just how covetable it is. There’s also a Mamou, Louisiana-based company, McWare, which produces cooking vessels that are decidedly similar to Magnalite – same aluminum build, comparable oval roaster shape, for a similar price point. Are they all worth it? That’s for each individual cook to decide, but one thing is for sure: a perfect pot of red beans is priceless.

 

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Just recently a vender at the indoor flea market in Slidell had this set of Magnalite pots , 10 pieces was asking  $85 , a darn good deal , that roaster can go for as much as  $300 on e-bay , a little cleaning and they would have been good as new ----   I have the whole set already plus some , but wanted them bad for that price as I would have passed them on to friends , but the lady wasn't there , tried to get in touch with her thru the owner of the market but no luck , when I went back they were gone 

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My Dad loved Guardian ware and left a pile of it. Most of it came from his folks. My Mom doesn’t use it and I don’t know if my sibs would use it. I’m more of a cast iron user.

Some of the information posted about Guardian Service says it’s hammered aluminum—I’d have to see how that’s done.

my dad was a big Magnalite fan too—had all the larger pans. Funny, he spent big money on the pans but then had to get a bigger stove. That man loved to eat.

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33 minutes ago, Goober said:

My Dad loved Guardian ware and left a pile of it. Most of it came from his folks. My Mom doesn’t use it and I don’t know if my sibs would use it. I’m more of a cast iron user.

Some of the information posted about Guardian Service says it’s hammered aluminum—I’d have to see how that’s done.

my dad was a big Magnalite fan too—had all the larger pans. Funny, he spent big money on the pans but then had to get a bigger stove. That man loved to eat.

I inherited my grandfathers' house in New Orleans and lived there till after Katrina , there was a Chambers gas stove with brick lined oven , that my mother bought new in like 1956 , it was sweet , had a broiler on the side , a warming well, and a grill top on top the broiler cover ,  it was giving me trouble with a low flame , had it looked at and wound up selling it for $2,800 , people came all the way from Georgia to buy it , it took 6 of use to get it on the trailer ---- when I put the new stove in , it was still a low flame , my plumbing buddy helped me to change out the under ground gas line that was clogged up with yellow stuff , so the stove was not bad , but if i would have not sold it , it would have flooded , so it lives on somewhere 

 

I have a few Guardian pots , one oval with a glass top that was my  grandmother's , another oval with with a hammer aluminum ,  top that doubles as a serving plater when flipped ---Knight is a brand that is very similar , would guess a knock off 

 

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Goober , I like the Guardian stuff too ----- I have both of these Guardians pic'ed below , the second pic , I have the hammer alum top instead of the glass one that  pic'ed , with the serving tray ---  no doubt it is old school quality stuff ----- I am about to go check out the local flea market right now , didn't make it yesterday was pretty busy partying 

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