If you are a reader of The Southern Voice, you are unarguably also a fan of Southern* cooking. Nothing speaks of Southern cooking like cast iron cookware. It brings back memories of a previous generation, cooking on woodstoves and those early electric stoves with eyes heavy enough to build a house on. Cast iron cookware is an heirloom that many of us covet. I was curious about its history and surprised at what I found.
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Cast iron cookware has been around as early as the 5th century, and relics of it have been found in China from that era. It was likely brought to Europe by travelers in those days via the Silk Road. It started being more popular in the 14th century, and by the 17th century, it was commonly used in western European households. There, like in early American homes, some of the cookware was made to be used over the open fire, outdoors or in fireplaces, made with a handle to be hung or with the standard three legs. We see it in movies. Some of you may even have a piece or two handed down.
In the late 1800s, three well-known American makers of cast iron cookware were founded. Griswold was first, followed a few years later by Wagner, who bought out Griswold in the 1970s. If you have a piece of Wagner or Griswold, you have a piece of Americana. Collectors prize it.
In the south, we had our own cast iron company. Lodge was founded in 1896 by John Lodge and is still a family-owned business today. Like all good Southern things, the cookware made by the company lasts more than one generation. Lodge is in South Pittsburgh, Tennessee, where it was founded, and is one of our country’s oldest continual producers of cast iron cookware. The Lodge factory in Tennessee is located thirty minutes from Chattanooga on the edge of the Cumberland Plateau. There they have a new museum of cast iron cookware, and you can buy cast iron cookware directly from the factory store. You can see the world’s largest cast iron skillet at the museum and browse the history of Southern cooking.
The Lodge factory is not the only place you can buy cast iron cookware. I see it at grocery stores here in East Tennessee and even at the local Walmart. There is an outlet just down the road as well. While the demand for it waned for a few years with the emergence of Teflon and other smooth, lightweight, almost disposable cookware, we in the south have stuck with our cast iron.
Boiled peanuts have been called “the caviar of the South.” Click here for the story.
These days cast iron comes preseasoned, enameled, and in other ways, “dolled up.” It is not the way I like my skillets and pots. Cast iron cookware should be seasoned by years of cooking, inky black, a piece with a personality all its own, preferably from one’s own family or friends. I have heard that some people fix cornbread in other types of bakeware. That is, if not un-American, is surely un-Southern. You can’t make a real dodger of cornbread in an aluminum pan.
My Dad held onto things from the past, and I did inherit some of his treasures. He passed on to me an old cast iron teapot that was my great-grandmother’s. Likely, it is a relic from the 1800s. It is cracked across the bottom and made to sit inside the eyes of the wood stove. I have a miniature cast iron skillet with bent rounds on the edges…it is an old ashtray my dad used. I have various small three-legged pots I found in his barn, and other pieces of cast iron I do not use. Useless but special to me. There is a bean pot and a Dutch oven from another era. Relics from another day and time. Pieces I have scarfed up or inherited from my dad. We both, it seems, had a thing for cast iron.
If, like me, you are a cast iron fan, look for it at yard sales, thrift shops, and other secondhand stores. It lasts more than one lifetime. I have seen it cracked and chipped, but it is pretty indestructible. Unlike today’s cookware coated with likely toxic materials, these will outlast my lifetime and yours. I sometimes look at those skillets and wonder about all the meals they have cooked and all the people they have served. I bet those skillets, Dutch Ovens, and pots have some stories to tell.
*Capitalizing Southern, I told Jim Harris about three dozen articles ago, is incorrect. His answer was, “I don’t care. I like it capitalized. If you want it in small letters, I will change it for your article. It is an important word, and it seems like it should be capitalized.”
He was so sincere. I answered, “No leave it alone. It is fine.” It is growing on me, Jim Harris. I like it capitalized too. Sometimes, we have to make our own writing and speaking rules. After all, we are Southerners.
