Cast Iron vs Clay Pots

I cut my teeth in cooking while living in a vegetarian hippy dippy housing cooperative during college. (GREAT time!)

There we had many, many cast iron pots and pans. Veggie stews were cooked in a cast iron pot with a lid. Pancakes were cooked off on a cast iron skillet. Our rice (brown, of course) was cooked in a smaller pot.


I learned to clean these pans, not with dish detergent, but with salt (to scrub) and sometimes some vinegar (there was very little [but some] oil in this style of cooking). The idea was that if you used dish detergent it would bond with the seasoned pot and appear again in your next dish - yuck.

Also, we NEVER put soap in our coffee pots. Just ice water, scrubbing, and a vinegar bath followed by a good rinse. Same reason.

Now I am cooking, here in Brazil, with seasoned clay and stone pots. It seems logical to me to carry forward the same thinking. Avoid the detergent.

But tell that to a Brazilian. At least in our area, people would not THINK of cleaning a pot without copious amounts of detergent.

I always cringe at the idea of putting dish detergent in a seasoned pot, but, you can't push the river. It will be, here, what it is. Jim does not have a say. (But I do protect my coffee pot!)

Furthermore - most of the things we cook in these pots are either rice or seafood - not that much oil to clean up after. No matter.

Oh well. Maybe I am just getting used to the slight soapy after taste...

All things considered - I prefer clay and stone pots.