The old iron skillet sat on the stovetop most of the time. There was a place for it in a cabinet below, but we used the frying pan so much – why put it away?
The well-seasoned black pan had been with us since Mother and Daddy got married and we moved to Seattle. I think Mama Ida had given it as a wedding present. Looking back, I can’t remember when it wasn’t there – ready to fry up a mess of quail or maybe a bluegill or two.
I learned to cook on the old pan.
Daddy had said he would drive me to Greenbrier Military School for assembly at 7:30 if I would cook breakfast. We had bacon and eggs most every morning and the oils and greases from the bacon had seeped deeply into that old skillet. This was way before Teflon and non-stick pans, but that old skillet would fry a mean egg, and they never stuck to the bottom. Well, maybe a little, but if you jiggled the eggs with a spatula a bit, they would behave, flip over nicely and be just as Daddy liked them – over easy. If the eggs ever broke, I had to eat them. Daddy said the cook always ate the broken eggs. I rarely broke one.
We washed the old pan only reluctantly. If Mom had cooked squash and onions or some other aromatic concoction, you had to wash the pan. But if it was just bacon you had fried, or eggs, we simply heated the pan a bit, poured the grease in a container beside the stove, wiped the surface and it was ready for its next adventure.
We had several cast iron pans, but that one old skillet was clearly the favorite. The others were intruders. Sometimes Mom would break one of them out of she was baking cornbread in the oven, but she fried everything in Old Faithful. Mostly, we used only that one pan.
My, how many fried chicken dinners did that old pan see? And how many pork chops met their match?
I don’t use a cast iron skillet anymore, except for baking. I use one of those new-fangled, non-stick pans and they work, for a while, then you have to replace them.
I miss the days of walking through the kitchen and seeing the old cast iron pan on the stove, ready for action. I miss our long kitchen table with 4 kids and two parents seated, each at his or her given place. Switching positions at the table was strictly forbidden. I miss seeing the biscuits passed around and a jar of molasses waiting to sweeten the bread, I miss biting into a chicken thigh fried to a perfect golden brown and I miss that old skillet.
Maybe I’ll break in another one, but it’ll take quite a while to get it seasoned just right.
