We have been selling cast iron for a long time, and we must admit at this stage that it is not for everyone. Actually, it is not for anyone. Cast iron has the following major disadvantages, and it would be simply dishonest of us to not tell you all about them.

Cast Iron is Heavy

This is the main one we hear a lot, and it is unfortunately accurate. The sheer weight of cast iron means that when you use it on an induction or electric hob it evens out that pulsating warming up and cooling down those hobs do. A Teflon pan causes your burger to sizzle for 10 seconds and then stew in its own sweat for 10 seconds. A cast iron pan stores the heat and transmits it to your meat evenly and continuously. This is bad. It makes smash burgers crunchy and caramelised instead of a nice greasy grey colour. It causes steak to be juicy and seared instead of beautifully floppy and nicely desiccated.

Cast Iron Kills

Another downside that unfortunately we must agree with. Your Teflon pan will never kill you. When it gets too hot it will just warp and give off as few as six highly toxic gasses. These gases cause chills, fevers, headaches, and can kill your pets. They are perfectly safe to you though. They are also carcinogenic – but sure so is smoking, and have you ever seen a dead person enjoying a cigar? Cast iron on the other hand is almost guaranteed to kill instantly. A swift blow to the head and you’re gone. On the positive side your cast iron pan will be unharmed and ready to kill again, your non-stick chef endorsed pan will be ruined. Did we mean non-stick chef or non-stick pan?

Cast Iron Ruins Tomatoes

Alas, this is also true. Essentially what is happening here is that when you cook tomatoes (or any other acidic food, but everyone keeps mentioning tomatoes and only tomatoes, probably because we all spend our lives cooking tomatoes, ironically this would be more ironic if there wasn’t a recipe that involved cooking tomatoes just below) your pan will leech iron into the said vegetables. I mean fruit. I mean vegetables. I mean tomatoes. I mean [checks thesaurus] love apples. You can tell this is true, because after cooking love apples maybe 4 or 5 times in the first week of owning your cast iron pan you will find that you no longer have a cast iron pan and that your city is under siege from ironbergs. This is because the cast iron has ultimately leeched [checks thesaurus], I mean bloodsuckered its way into your tomato, from there into your gut and from there into the municipal sewerage system. This will not happen with a Teflon pan.

Cast Iron is Hot

This is another common bit of abuse thrown at cast iron by celebrity chefs who are so eager to get you to use a Teflon pan that they go around signing their names on them as a helpful endorsement. It is obvious why a hot frying pan is a bad thing. Especially if you are using it to make ice cream. Stick with your "Marco Pierre White" that according to the great man himself is “an extension of a chef’s hand”. He said slowly whilst staring moodily at the camera, cheque from Teflon in his back pocket, and a Knorr stock cube in his non extended other hand.

Cast Iron Rusts

It does. It’s true. We have to admit that we use a Teflon pan for all our barbeque cooking. The reason is that we can wash it in the sea water beside our favourite campsite and then leave it on the roof of the camper van all night for the birds to play in while it dries. We have been doing this for 6 days now and it has still not rusted. The handle has melted, the lid is smashed, the non-stock coating was eaten by Wednesday, the paint has come off, and it is a bit bashed up – but crucially it has never rusted. Here’s to another 6 days. We tried using a cast iron pan once, but it rusted to hell. We had to rub it with a Brillo pad and put some oil on it to make it like new again. Nobody has time for that.

Cast Iron is Sticky

Cast iron is notorious for its ability to stick to almost anything. Margaret Thatcher was known as the Iron Lady for her tendency to stick to Ronald Reagan. However, I am going to argue that this is one of the advantages of cast iron as it saves a lot of shelf space. We just throw ours at the wall and there they remain. When we want to use one (infrequently) we just hold a tomato up to it and *boom* she jumps right off the wall. If you are fast you can catch it mid-air before it touches the tomato and becomes one with it. Anyway – here is a business idea for you – Post-It Notes ™ made from cast iron.

Conclusion

In conclusion, when a celebrity chef informs you that you need a celebrity chef endorsed frying pan from a company that specialises in repeatedly selling you frying pans then perhaps you should listen. With their space shuttle technology and their try-ply polywolly trademarked housewife approved coatings these pans will give a lifetime of value to shareholders and celebrity chefs alike. Cast iron can merely sit on the shelf year after year after year after year after year while these amazing pans come in, look sexy, start peeling, warp out of shape, and get replaced by another amazing pan. So as of this moment we are liquidating our stock of cast iron pans. Use them as flowerpots* or something. We don’t care. They are available online now for half price. By half price we mean about half the price of the Teflon coated ones. Be quick – they are rusting away as we speak.

* not suitable for growing tomatoes