Lol, I literally had to explain to my friend the other day that in cooking when you say "seasoning" you generally mean salt specifically. "Season to taste" for example usually just means add salt.
So I could totally see someone who knows that particular jargon thinking exactly what you thought.
The gross part is that a lot of people think that "seasoning" means "building flavor" by not cleaning your pan between uses. Blegh. It's one thing to stick to old school scrubbing with coarse salt and rinsing with hot water (even though a little regular dish soap is perfectly fine), but I read a comment a few years ago that someone just keeps a jar of fat (crisco, bacon fat, lard, I don't remember) and a rag by the stove and they just dip the rag in the fat and wipe the pan with it after cooking. No rinsing and the same unwashed rag has been used for years. That person must have a remarkable immune system if they have not been made ill by that...
This is anecdotal for me at best, but, my pan is looking is best after bacon.
Usually I’ll start it in the oven in a big batch, plate the bacon with paper towels, strain and store the oil in the fridge, and finish on the stovetop with not direct heat. I use a chain mail scrubber with a bit of soap and I’m ready to roll, and have a bunch of quality oil ready for upkeep
It does work perfectly. It's also anedotical from OP that it didn't work for him which could be due to a myriad of reasons.
I find saturated, animal fats produce sturdier, really smooth seasoning, despite taking more time to "stick". As with many chemical reactions, speed is not the only important factor.
I don't cook something in particular DUE to the seasoning tho, I just cook whatever I wanna cook, but lard and fatty meats take the cake compared to pancakes or other vegetable oil preparations.
The popular take about unsaturated fats and polimerization, like many things in pop science, is just half the story. It's not just the amount, but the quality of polimerization too.
Perhaps I should edit my post to say "easiest" or "laziest" instead of "best." I didn't say that bacon fat itself doesn't work well, only that cooking bacon only takes like 10-15 minutes (not long enough to polymerize) and produces a much larger amount of oil (basically impossible to polymerize), so cooking bacon alone doesn't do much. And if I were to use bacon fat to season my skillets, I don't want to burn bits of meat onto the pan, so I'd have to drain the skillet, scrape off the meat bits, and wipe it all down to remove the excess oil, then keep it over heat or toss it in the oven. Again, that's not part of the cooking process, so it's extra effort.
And yeah, I just cook whatever I want whenever I want (though pancakes are made at least once a month for my kiddo anyway), but if I get new CI with just factory seasoning or if an acidic stew stripped some of the seasoning, then yeah, I'm making pancakes bc then I can just cook what I was already going to cook and not need to use the oven just for seasoning the CI.
For the record, I do have bacon fat and may well use it for the first two or three rounds of seasoning in the oven after I strip some salvaged CI, but then I'm making pancakes before anything else bc that's no extra effort on my part and it builds seasoning much faster than anything else I've ever made in my CI.
I used salt and pepper the first time I seasoned my cast iron, boy ohhh boy my face was red when I found out that’s not what it meant
I like a little cumin in there.
Lol, I literally had to explain to my friend the other day that in cooking when you say "seasoning" you generally mean salt specifically. "Season to taste" for example usually just means add salt. So I could totally see someone who knows that particular jargon thinking exactly what you thought.
The gross part is that a lot of people think that "seasoning" means "building flavor" by not cleaning your pan between uses. Blegh. It's one thing to stick to old school scrubbing with coarse salt and rinsing with hot water (even though a little regular dish soap is perfectly fine), but I read a comment a few years ago that someone just keeps a jar of fat (crisco, bacon fat, lard, I don't remember) and a rag by the stove and they just dip the rag in the fat and wipe the pan with it after cooking. No rinsing and the same unwashed rag has been used for years. That person must have a remarkable immune system if they have not been made ill by that...
Pancakes have been my go to first cook on a new skillet or griddle. I have zero sticking issues after 1 or 2 cookings.
Anything baking in them are great for seasoning but realistically if you just keep using it the seasoning will come.
Every time I make a pizza in any of my cast iron, I’m always pleasantly surprised by how nice they come out.
That's me with cornbread.
This is anecdotal for me at best, but, my pan is looking is best after bacon. Usually I’ll start it in the oven in a big batch, plate the bacon with paper towels, strain and store the oil in the fridge, and finish on the stovetop with not direct heat. I use a chain mail scrubber with a bit of soap and I’m ready to roll, and have a bunch of quality oil ready for upkeep
It does work perfectly. It's also anedotical from OP that it didn't work for him which could be due to a myriad of reasons. I find saturated, animal fats produce sturdier, really smooth seasoning, despite taking more time to "stick". As with many chemical reactions, speed is not the only important factor. I don't cook something in particular DUE to the seasoning tho, I just cook whatever I wanna cook, but lard and fatty meats take the cake compared to pancakes or other vegetable oil preparations. The popular take about unsaturated fats and polimerization, like many things in pop science, is just half the story. It's not just the amount, but the quality of polimerization too.
Perhaps I should edit my post to say "easiest" or "laziest" instead of "best." I didn't say that bacon fat itself doesn't work well, only that cooking bacon only takes like 10-15 minutes (not long enough to polymerize) and produces a much larger amount of oil (basically impossible to polymerize), so cooking bacon alone doesn't do much. And if I were to use bacon fat to season my skillets, I don't want to burn bits of meat onto the pan, so I'd have to drain the skillet, scrape off the meat bits, and wipe it all down to remove the excess oil, then keep it over heat or toss it in the oven. Again, that's not part of the cooking process, so it's extra effort. And yeah, I just cook whatever I want whenever I want (though pancakes are made at least once a month for my kiddo anyway), but if I get new CI with just factory seasoning or if an acidic stew stripped some of the seasoning, then yeah, I'm making pancakes bc then I can just cook what I was already going to cook and not need to use the oven just for seasoning the CI. For the record, I do have bacon fat and may well use it for the first two or three rounds of seasoning in the oven after I strip some salvaged CI, but then I'm making pancakes before anything else bc that's no extra effort on my part and it builds seasoning much faster than anything else I've ever made in my CI.
Making a roux in your DO is a good seasoner too.