Don’t Throw Out the Cast Iron Pans

(Otherwise known as the Parable of Book-Smart Young Fool)

When I was about to be married, my grandmother gave me a great gift. She was suffering the early stages of Alzheimer’s, and it was clear she needed to move into facilitated care. She told me she would gift me her incredibly affordable ($350 a month!) 2-bedroom apartment and everything she had in it. What a blessed way to start our married life.

When I moved in, it quickly became apparent that her condition had impacted her ability to maintain her home. It was especially clear in the kitchen, with dishes that were not cleaned well and food that was not stored safely. We had a lot of generous gifts and my new husband had saved up quite a bit of money, so I decided to clear the kitchen out and start over again.

I threw everything away, and armed with all of years of home economics – set out to buy replacements. I had the education, and I was not afraid to use it.

I bet you know where this story is going. At the time, Teflon non-stick coated cookware was the greatest new thing. I was so proud of my light non-stick cookware, so much better than those heavy, old, worn cast iron pans.

The pans that made thousands of meals. The crispest cornbread. Her fried eggs full of pepper and spices. All of the meals she had made for me though the years, I threw them away. For the shiny and the new.

Foolish.

It was over a decade later that the full weight of my decision was clear to me. By then, all of her knowledge was forever lost as she grew more and more childlike and eventually passed away.

By then, I had discovered Le Crueset cookware as an outlet store came to town. I got some and learned the impossible to reproduce results of cooking with cast iron. But these were enameled, not seasoned. As I continued to grow wiser, I realized the benefits of a seasoned pan. I suffer from a condition that makes me anemic. Guess what is an easy way to get extra iron in your diet? Cooking in a seasoned cast iron pan.

I went to every Goodwill, Salvation Army and Value Village I could find, looking for pans abandoned by people as foolish as me. None could be found.

Eventually, I purchased a pan and have begun the long process of deeply seasoning it. Everytime, I’m forced to reseason it, heat up the oven, put it in, I regret the loss of my grandmas pans.

You know, the dishes I bought were better than hers. Some things did need to be replaced. However, not those pans.

My grandma had at most a middle school education. She spent her entire life doing domestic work. Honest work and hard work but nothing that required any specific knowledge you would go to school to learn.

Her reading skills were minimal, so she cooked as she was taught. Old recipes, recipes passed down for generations. Techniques that she learned from the generation before her. In my folly, I thought as the first college educated member of her family, I knew better. I didn’t ask her about the pans. I didn’t learn her recipes. I have lost so much of the knowledge she had, because I thought I knew better.

For over 20 years, I have been involved in organizations that are in some process of change and transformation. I provide consultation on how to change, I specialize in planning and training for the change to occur. I spend a lot of time with the leaders envisioning the change, dreaming of the future, full of the knowledge that they have a better way than what was done in the past.

In many ways they do. I’ve seen some ambitious efforts to transform organizations and the results are amazing.

I also hear whispers of the book-smart young fool. The desire to replace everything. The distain for the lack of knowledge of the previous leaders. The refusal to include their wisdom in the plan and to retain the tried and true things they have found work. The cast iron pans.

My advice is look for the cast iron plans. Before you change and evolve, find the tried and true cast iron pans. Speak to your elders and find out why they work so well. What are the secrets of using them? How do you maintain them? Why are they so valuable?

Treasure the cast iron pans and the traditions they represent. You can use the new recipes and techniques in them and create a better future with them than having to start from scratch without them.