"...WHAT are you guys doing???..."

Some guys are into instant gratification. They want their stuff cooked NOW! So they keep the heat on high when it shouldn't be, push the food around a lot with that plastic spatula, and sometimes forget and leave the spatula in the pan when they go to the 'fridge for another beer.

I of course have never done that...

Me neither! :-o


When Scouts do that I call it "active cooking". They keep moving the food around - especially bacon. The hot grease trashes all sorts plastic utensils in short time.

Sigh.

Okay. I see. Just another well-seasoned pan shot to he**. Again. In winter, when it can't be re-seasoned very well because of the confined stink. Gotcha.

Sue

Hmm, when is a pan not just a pan?

How about my 17" Maca heavy camp dutch oven. It has an elk designed by an artist in Utah cast into the lid, and it weighs over 60 lbs empty. It cost me well over $200 and it will outlast my children if they take care of it like I do. Or there's that Griswold muffin tin I inherited from my Great-grandmother. I reckon I could sell it for around $50 easy enough, but it won't be going anywhere. Or there's the first little dutch oven I bought over 30 years ago, which I have used thousands of times to cook tons of food in, 2 to 4 quarts at a time. I ground my initials and my registered brand into the bottom of it long ago, and I can still read it just fine. I suppose I could buy one just like it new today for maybe $15, but how do you replace a pot like that? Each layer of shiny carbon is another treasured memory. There's even a couple of layers in there I am sure that came after one of the last meals Grandad and I shared together.

Yep, it's just a pan.

Of all the gear that was taken with them, the lowly dutch oven was among those that Lewis and Clark both regarded as amongst the most valued.