Tender Beef Pot Roast
Swiss Crabmeat Bake
Fisherman’s Tuna Melts
Blackened Cajun Catfish
Loaded Party Potatoes
Cheesy Puffed Potatoes
Easy Potatoes Au Gratin
Cheese & Onion Puffs
Simple Green Beans & Red Potatoes
Garlic Potato Wedges
Cheesy Baked Corn
Vegetable & Stuffing Bake
Quick Spanish Rice
Inside-Out Jalapeño Poppers
Glazed Autumn Vegetables
Spicy Baked Beans
Roasted Herbed Vegetables
Zucchini-Tomato Bake
Creamy Mac & Cheese
Hot Pimento Dip
Jumbo Chipper Cookie
S’mores Hand Pies
One-Pan Brownies
Extreme Brownie Pie
Nutty Hot Fudge Cake
Flaky Walnut Pastries
Easy Spiced Peach Cake
Fresh Cinnamon Fruit Swirls
Hiker’s Cherry Almond Cake
Banana Upside-Down Cake
Caramel Banana Pound Cake
Pineapple Upside-Down Cake
Pie Iron Upside-Down Cake
Best Berry Crumble
Camper’s Dream Pies
Rhubarb Pie Dessert
Dutch Oven Cinnamon-Pecan Cake
Apple Cake Dessert
Caramel Apple Delight
Granny’s Apple Pie
FOREWORD
A Brief History of Cast Iron Cookware
The Dutch oven, once called the black pot or cooking cauldron, has been a popular cooking vessel for centuries. In fact, early references to the black pot can be found in the Old Testament of the Bible. Christopher Columbus brought Dutch oven cooking pots with him on the voyage that led to the discovery of the Americas. In 1620, the Pilgrims cooked with them during their crossing to America, hanging the pots from ship beams and building fires underneath them in sand pits. The Dutch oven is now returning to popularity because of the tasty food it produces and because of the material from which it is made: cast iron.
Cast iron was the material of choice for early cookware because of its ability to withstand high heat, frequent use and some rough handling. Until the start of the eighteenth century, iron was cast in baked loam or clay soil molds. This gave the finished product a rough surface, and the mold generally broke during removal. These early pieces were also very thick walled and heavy. The most advanced foundries of the time were located in or near Holland, and their high-quality cast iron products, including Dutch ovens, were imported to Great Britain and elsewhere in Europe. When people from Europe and Great Britain immigrated to America, they brought the cast iron trade with them.
In 1704, Abraham Darby, an English Quaker, traveled to Holland to inspect the cast iron foundries. As a result, he discovered that wet sand molds could be used to make lighter, thinner cast iron products at a much faster rate than with other methods. In 1708, Darby received a patent for his casting process and began manufacturing large quantities of cast iron products in a furnace at Coalbrookdale. By the mid-eighteenth century, Darby’s cast iron pots were being shipped to America.
This image from the mid- to late-1900s shows a Lodge Manufacturing Company employee creating the molds for Lodge’s cast iron products.
The first American casting was made in Massachusetts circa 1642, and afterward, small foundries began to appear in most of the colonies. Pots from this time period can often be identified by a round protrusion of extra iron, known as a sprue, formed on the pot where the iron entered the mold. Generally, the sprue is located on the bottom of a pot, so it didn’t affect the use of hearth pots, which were suspended over a fire or nestled in a bed of coals. As cooking ranges were developed, however, it became necessary to produce cookware with flat bottoms for use on a stovetop or in the oven of a coal or wood stove.
Two major foundries producing cast iron cookware during the eighteenth century were Griswold Manufacturing Company in Erie, Pennsylvania, and Wagner Manufacturing Company in Sidney, Ohio. With the invention of artificial nonstick materials like Teflon®, however, the cookware industry began to change, resulting in the closing of many foundries, including Griswold and Wagner. People wanted pots and pans that were lightweight, pretty and pretreated for nonstick cooking. Cast iron skillets, griddles and Dutch ovens were relegated to the back shelf in favor of the newest and “greatest” cookware available.
