As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
I have an affection for cast iron pans. They are all I knew as a kid as that is all the mother used in the "spiders" as she called them. We did not have brand names, but they were the poor people's version and actually better than Griswolds which are too light and prone to crack when you have idiots cooking with them in high heat.
So I noticed this rusty ass pan at the junk yard on JYG's brother's side and picked it up as I love cast iron. It was winter and I had not time for it, so set it in JYG's shed and as I had just reconditioned that stupid grill pan I got at the junk yard, I looked to do the same to that pan as I knew where it was, and brought it in.
It was in horrendous shape in rust. Actually the handle was so rough it hurt my hand in being jagged. But I put the Curly Kate to it and got the chunks of rust loose, dumped my salvage oil I keep out of deep fat frying, turned up the flame and let it get hot to smoking and then carefully painted the sides of the pan. As I could see how nice it look with oil on it, compared to the ghastly outside, I coated that too.
Pan actually looked pretty nice.
While there was too much rust on the bottom yet, I noticed a #5 on the pan handle. I knew I had a Griswold or a Wagner which impressed me as I had saved a 50 dollar collectors item.
So I heated it up again, and left it set and as I type this, it is scrubbed on the outside waiting to see if this is a Wagner which I think it is.
I have a few statements to make on this.
Yes I did bake this pan while baking chicken to season it more. I will use hog lard as that is the premium in seasoning pans. I dislike fruit, vegetable or grain oils, as they are thin and things tend to stick which makes things worse. Hog lard makes cast iron behave allot quicker.
All the mother or anyone had when I was a kid was #3 for eggs and #8's for frying chickens before they got to be as big as turkeys. As I started studying cast iron, I simply could not figure out why in hell people glommed onto those #3's. Yes they all had 12 kids and ate like horses so you had two eggs, ham and onion for Denver sandwiches, but it is always what I concluded to on tractors........you can do the same amount of work with a big tractor a small one, and a small on can not do the work of a big one, so why get small tractor.
That is the way I view these smaller pans. A #5 is like a #6, you can do something with it. No you can't feed 12 kids with it, but if the kids are out at the swimming hole and ma and pa are sparking alone, that #5 can make a pile of fried potatoes, do the Denver and allot of things that a #3 could only spill food out of.
Granted, I found a fake #2 for TL and I for eggs, and I honestly love that pan. I have always wanted a #4 but cold not afford it, but for me the pans that makes sense are #2, #5, #9 in cast iron. In the day of leghorns and banties, yes that #8 fried a whole chicken, but not any more. The 8 just is enough pan and not enough pan at the same time. Get bigger than that like my 10 and 15, well it takes a hell of a burner to heat them up to work or pile of ashes out on the trail.
#2/s work very good on toast and suffice to overlap on English Muffins. #3 you get too much hanging out going on. Just saying in this I think that #5 is better and as our kitchen tilts so the eggs run to the corner of the pan, they kind of gather up in that corner. I realize most people do not live in shacks built by jack knife carpenters during homesteading so you do not have nuances in your luxury so a #5 might run your eggs a bit thin, but it makes up for it on your petite rations of hash browns and your little meat products you tend to think are portions.
That is about all the wisdom I care to share on that subject, but I think I might break this #5 in on pancakes and leave that Lodge begging for something to do. Hope it is not a disaster, but in cast iron conditioning, you kind of get eggs that a rust coloured or pancakes with a bit more the first times you use a pan. I'm not about to throw food away, so I eat it and get more in whatever nutrition is in rust.
These foundling pans are my new pets as my other ones got put away, so I kind of have pans that I found and a gave a home and am like a pioneer making due, and it is kind of a fun adventure not having the good stuff and seeing what comes of this stuff........well #5 is the good stuff, expensive to acquire and I like the idea of it on my stove and not on some ship to China being smelted into bombs to bomb America.
Nuff Said
agtG
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