I just started cooking in an iron pan, and I love it. It's actually not significantly more difficult to clean once you learn to leave the seasoning on and get over the cultural conditioning of what clean is essentially.
The cooking process it also far better, with the whole pan being uniformly hot and staying that way.
There are a lot of old misconceptions around about cast iron seasoning. It's a layer of bioplastic formed by the polymerization when heating a thin layer of oil on the pan to high temperature - It's not about leaving your pan dirty or 'flavored'. You can clean it with regular dish soap just fine, that isn't strong enough to take the layer off.
Yes, correct. I'll add, though, that this takes skill to develop. Even the soap just left on the sponge from washing other utensils is too much. So I'll often just foregoe the soap unless there is an egregious bit of food stuck on it - which is rare as the heat is so well distributed on cast iron that I don't burn food anymore using it.
The fear of using soap was real back 100 years ago when soap contained lye, which would destroy the seasoning on your pan. Today is this no longer true, so clean away!
No, that's not me. In any case, in our language we don't use the same word for the pan coating that we use for food flavouring. There is no smell on these pans! But yes, if people are treating their cookware as referenced in that page, then I understand why you are appalled.
You need to preheat the pan and not cook at a temperature where the oil polymerizes or the ingredients can burn. When you put something sticky in it, you need to wait a bit for the crust to form before moving it.
