Cooking with love … and cast iron

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November 28, 2009

Dwain Walden The Moultrie Observer Sat Nov 28, 2009, 09:47 PM EST

So just what does it mean when a promotion says, “Cooking with love?”

I received such a promotion today, the essence of which was to sell me some cookware. Let me state right up front, I detest cookware parties. I’ve been to two. The first one should have done me for a lifetime, but sometimes we get up and push the stupid button, and we’re bound to repeat a mistake.

Anyway, this fellow wants me to buy some cast-iron cookware which is just the opposite of what those earlier cookware parties declared. They said cast iron wasn’t good for me because the old grease would collect in the porous iron no matter how hard one scrubbed it. I viewed it as “built-in seasoning” or maybe “gravy helper.”

And the new spiel was that we all need a little iron in our diets, thus the opposite view.

I tend to like cast iron cookware. It makes me think of my ancestors cooking in fireplaces and over campfires. Not only that, if you hit a burglar with a cast iron skillet, he’s going down for the count. One of those other skillets would sound like a chime.

I suppose the “cooking with love” promotion is a good one. It made me stop and think. And it’s not like we would consciously “cook with hate,” or “cook with a vengeance.” I guess one might “cook with indifference.” I’m sure we’ve all eaten at some of those restaurants along our journeys.

If I don’t have other pressing issues, I can get very philosophical about baked sweet potatoes, collard greens seasoned with ham hocks, redeye gravy and hot biscuits, etc.

I once read an article in which the author said we should “eat to live,” not “live to eat.” Basically he said we should consider eating as a mechanical process, thinking in terms of body-building protein and not how good a T-bone steak will taste with potato salad and baked beans.

But such a notion is very difficult. It’s way too clinical. You see, we’ve made eating a social event — a center piece. It’s even Biblical. A lot of the Bible brings food into the mix as parable as well as historic backdrop to show the Judeo-Christian development.

Let’s face it, good eating is fun. We enjoy it. To try to embrace it from purely a clinical process is like going on your first date wearing a white lab coat, horn-rimmed glasses and pulling out a calculator to figure the tip. Perhaps the young lady will conclude that you are a serious, efficient person with whom she might someday enter into a contract to help propagate the species. Or she might think, “Boy did I push the stupid button.”

Meanwhile, I think the concept of “cooking with love” can run the gamut from making sure the meal is healthy to whipping up a batch of chicken soup when someone has the flu.

And I’m glad someone had something good to say about cast iron cookware. In search of an analogy, I think it’s like holding on to your old neckties. Eventually the style will come back around. Philosophically speaking, life is a circle. And while I’ve never read a poem about a cast-iron skillet, that doesn’t mean there should not be one.

Also philosophically speaking, a wise old pig one said, “I pink, therefore I Spam.”

(Dwain Walden is editor/publisher of The Moultrie Observer, 985-4545. Email: dwain.walden@gaflnews.com)

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