Sorghum Syrup: Through Thick and Thin

This sweetener is rare in the United States today, but it’s seen us through any number of times when granulated sugar was scarce. Anney and Lauren dip into the history and science of sweet sorghum.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hello, and welcome to Savor Protection of I Heart Radio.
I'm Annie Reese and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum. And today we
have an episode for you about sorghum syrup. Right, and
there's a very specific reason for this one. Correct. Uh yeah, okay.
So um, so June tenth, newly a national holiday is
almost upon us and so I was kind of I

(00:30):
was looking for, um, a dish or a product that
came to us thanks to black people in America. And uh,
sorghum and sorghum syrup are definitely within that purview. Yes, yes, uh,
And we're going to expand on that in the history section. Um.

(00:52):
I I don't have too much experience with this, but
it seems based on what I read, I have a
lot more than a lot of America does. Yeah, i'd
say that, I'd say that modern ly, Um, it's very
much a like like Southern Appalachian food ways kind of product. UM.

(01:13):
But but I see it. I mean I I see
it frequently on especially right, especially like kind of like
southern cuisine themed menus um. And being in Atlanta, we
have many of those. UM. I think the most often
that I see it as an ingredient is as a
sorghum butter would like sort of like a honey butter,

(01:34):
like served with a with a bread basket at at restaurants,
which is so good. Um and uh and oh and
I was thinking about it recently because I went on
a field trip um with some coworkers to see Rock
City and yeah and uh, our our dear friend um
and uh. Super producer Miranda Hawkins was like, oh man,

(01:58):
they've got sorghum butter. Can I just get some sorghum butter.
Love sorghum butter all the time everywhere, And then like
once I was paying attention to it, I was like, oh, yeah,
this is kind of everywhere. That's great. Yeah, I feel
like I again before the pandemic because I really haven't
gone out to restaurants too much since then, but before then,
I feel like I saw it a lot on brunch menus. Sure. Yeah,

(02:21):
And I just I prefer savory almost every time over sweet.
So that's why I sayed, like I see it a lot.
I just you don't have a lot of experience with it, right,
And I do like when I've had it, it's good.
But I'm just someone who's almost always going to get
the savory option, brunch option. Sure, yeah, oh brunch. I

(02:46):
missed the um so you could see our sugar episodes
episodes did we do too? We did too? It was
kind of a two parter, I guess also our honey
episode sort of right for like the history of sweeteners
in general. Um uh, And this is gonna have to

(03:09):
have another because right right we're focusing on sorghum syrup today.
Sorghum as a grain is going to have to be
a whole other episode. Yes, yes, yes, chifs um. But
do do highly recommend listening to those sugar ones just
because the story of these two topics are very intertwined.

(03:29):
Oh absolutely, yeah. All right, but I guess that brings
us to our question. Yes, sorghum syrup what is it? Well? Uh,
Sorghum syrup is a type of liquid sweetener made from
the sorghum plant, which is itself a type of cereal
grain grass related to sugarcane and corn and millet um.

(03:53):
It grows in tall stocks and you can press the
stocks to get to get a thin juice and then
cook that juice down to create that sirrup. Um. It's
deep red to like amber brown in color and uh,
and and thick, like similar to molasses or like a
very dark honey in appearance. The flavor is a little
bit different though. It's got this kind of like multi

(04:16):
rich earthy flavor um, but still has these like bright, grassy,
spiced kind of notes. Uh. This is a little esoteric,
but it reminds me of like a concentrated um rum
agricole or cashasa um, which makes sense in a lot
of ways. Uh. It's like, um, it's like you know

(04:37):
when the sun is rising on a cloudy day and
you get these incredibly solid looking red rays coming through
under the cloud line. It's like it's like if you
could bottle that and put it on your biscuits, it's beautiful.

(04:59):
Once again, you've painted quite a picture pale. Yeah. One
of my one of my very serious cravings through this
pandemic has been for fresh biscuits, because I can make
them at home, but gosh, it's better when someone else
makes them for me. Oh okay, alright, so um so

(05:26):
sorghum right, kind of a different episode, but briefly, um,
it's it's a tropical too subtropical grass. Yeah. It grows
about a meter or three tall like three to nine
feet sometimes taller with with with thick fibrous stalks holding
up these big sprays of tiny flowers like up to
six thousand flowers of stalk um, each of which will

(05:47):
produce a seed. UH. Humans have developed a bunch of
different cultivars of of sorghum um. Some are grown for
their seeds, which are starchy grains used for everything you
would use corn where we eat or rice four um.
And some are grown for their stalks, which contain a
lot of sugars, you know, ostensibly for those grains, but
we like eating them too. Um. These varieties are called

(06:11):
sweet sorghum and are used as animal feed and or
pressed for their juice to make syrup. The s is
cooked down right and then can be used as any
other liquid sweetener wood um to make candy or to
flavor baked goods and desserts, or is a topping drizzled
on anything you want to add some sweetness to. UH.
It is often rip made into made into sorghum butter

(06:34):
in the South and or apple lachia and Sorghum is
a gluten free grain, so it's gained popularity is the
market for gluten free products has grown. UM. It's a
fairly common sweetener in the pharmaceutical industry as well, and
is widely used as animal forage and for the production
of ethanol biofuel UM, and for its fibers, to to

(06:56):
create products like brooms and other structural accents UM, and
to make alcoholic beverages like beer or a vodka or
bai jew, which is a Chinese liquor that I am
really into right now. It is so good, it's so weird.
I adore it. Yes, yes, uh, And I guess through

(07:19):
all of this, I'm remembering our maple syrup episode would
probably be a good Oh absolutely yeah. Yeah, and our
beat and seats and beats and and also around agrical
Yeah that I missed that all the time. Every now
and then I'll just get a memory of tasting that Hawaii,
and I'll be like transported. Yeah, what a what a beautiful,

(07:43):
what a beautiful everything that was? Indeed indeed, uh, well,
but what about the nutrition? Uh? Okay. So, Sorghum syrup
is a sweetener, and generally speaking, we should all limit
the amount of of sweeteners that we consume. UM. However,
as a sweetener, Sorgum syrup is relatively nutrient rich. Um.

(08:07):
It contains like a little bit of protein and a
really good smattering of minerals compared to other sugars. Um
it has less actual sugar content compared to other sweeteners.
So uh, yeah, yeah, yeah, we're speaking of I meant
to bring this up at the top, but the other

(08:28):
day a friend and I got into a friendly debate
on how to pronounce syrup, whether it's syrup or syrup. Huh.
I think I say syrup. But when have I been
saying I have no idea, I don't listen to myself.
We don't even know. We don't even know what's happening here.

(08:50):
I'm sure as we continue, things will come to light. Yeah.
And and actually, sorghum is one of those things I've
definitely heard pronounced. I'm sorgum. Oh okay, So I'm kind
of like warring with myself about how to Yeah, it's cool, okay,
fun with pronunciation. Always always a listeners, let us know. Uh.

(09:16):
In the meantime, we do have some numbers for you,
we do. Uh. Sorghum is one of the world's top
five cereal crops. Yeah, I think the top five in order.
I think our rice, wheat, corn, barley, and then sorgum. Yeah. Um.
Over fifty five million tons of sorghum are produced every year,

(09:38):
and as of twenty nineteen, the US was the largest
producer sorghum, followed by Nigeria, India, and Mexico. In the
US produced three hundred and sixty five million bushels of
sorghum um and as of seventeen, when about the same
amount was being produced in the US, cent of it

(09:58):
was being grown in texts, US in Kansas. A lot
of educational documents out of those those states about oh
yeah um. The production value of the United States crop
as one was two point five billion dollars. Wow right.

(10:19):
And although it has long been a staple crop in
Africa and Asia, like providing over seventy of daily clark
intake in some populations there, um, it has been a
relatively late bloomer in the in the US, UM, but
it's been growing in popularity. Some research showed an increase
of both graining sweet sorghum together on restaurant menus from

(10:43):
the years of two hundred and six. Wow yeah, And
that that was kind of like the midst of the
of the like Southern cuisine boom so Uh. But yeah,
it's it really is a fascinating history. Oh, it is,

(11:07):
and it's a long history. So we've got a lot
to get into. Uh huh. And we are going to
get into that as soon as we get back from
a quick break for award from our sponsors. And we're back,
Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you. So. According to archaeological

(11:30):
evidence uncovered near the Egyptian Sudanese border, sorghum has existed
in Africa since at least eight thousand BC. Uh those
some researchers believe it's even older than that. The first
evidence we have of domesticated sorghum comes out of Sudan circu.
Three thousand BC, though there were probably more than one

(11:51):
domestication events. Yeah. Another domestication from round about the same
time has been traced to what's now Ethiopia. Yeah at
uh multiple instances. Yes, And because it grows well in
arid climates, it most likely spread across Africa fairly quickly
as nomadic humans migrated, purposefully transporting and planting sorghum as

(12:13):
they went. Uh. Wall paintings suggests sorgham was being grown
in Egypt by seventh century BC, and was used as
a food source for both people and perhaps specifically poorer
people and also livestock. Evidence places sorghum in India by
four thousand b C, where it was cultivated by around

(12:34):
two thousand b C. Um. From there, sorghum eventually reached China,
most likely distributed along trade routes, although one theory suggests
that Ganghis Khan introduced sorgham to China in the twelve
hundreds C. Others, yeah, I know, who knows. Other theories
make the argument sorgham was present in that country by

(12:54):
the second century b C, so that's a pretty big range.
Plenty wrote about sorghum and the first century CE, indicating
that at least some parts of Europe were familiar with
it by then. European colonizers introduced sorgham to the New
World in the sixteenth century, and according to some sources,
sorgham arrived to the American colonies to be a guinea

(13:17):
in the seventeenth century. Okay, back to that in a minute.
Uh Lanais first classified the genus sorghum in seventeen fifty three,
and it was further classified a few years later. The
first known mention of sorghum in the US was written
by Benjamin franklin Um when he described how sorgham was

(13:39):
used in seventeen fifty seven to make brooms. And yes,
as we kind of mentioned at the top, sorghum story
in the US mirrors that of sugarcane in a lot
of ways. While sorgham may have been present on a
small scale prior, seventeenth century, traders of enslaved peoples and
the enslaved people themselves introduced sorga more widely to the

(14:02):
United States, perhaps partly through guinea um. Enslaved Africans used
sorghum in a wide variety of things and in a
variety of ways and foods like breads, puddings, and as
a pulled candy or as a feed for chickens, and
the inedible fiber for things like brooms. It wasn't until
the mid eighteen hundreds that Americans at large started to

(14:25):
use sorghum syrup culinarily, and this was in part due
to sugarcane um. So, Okay, we've discussed before, but Americans
have a real sweet tooth, and this is not a
new thing. We have had one for a long time.
Because of this, European Americans really loved sugarcane and used
it in all kinds of things, from foods to drinks

(14:46):
to medicines. However, the sugarcane industry relied on forced labor
of inside people's and perpetuated the industry of enslavement, so
abolitionist boycotted it. The boycott gamed momentum in North as
the Civil War loomed and Northerners didn't want to support
the Southern economy. On top of that, they knew that

(15:07):
when war did break out, their supply of sugarcane would
be cut off, so they turned to other sweeteners suited
for cold weather, like maple syrup and beach sugar. But
sorghum got in the mix too. Okay, so now we're
gonna take a quick detour. Okay, but all will be illuminated, Okay,

(15:29):
I promised. Let's talk about France, Okay, sure, yes, all right.
In eighteen fifty one, the Geographical Society of Paris requested
that the French Council, located in Shanghai send cuttings, seeds
and plants of sorghum that might be suited to growing
in Europe. From this, the French horticulturists ended up planting

(15:51):
only one seed, but it grew and multiplied, spurring experiments
that got folks really pumped about sorghum. Because I'm we're
not talking about this now, but they France also had
a lot of issues with sugar getting cut off and
finding different ways of sweeteners, so this is a big
deal for them to um. Yeah, we're not the only

(16:12):
ones with the sweet tooth. No, no, we're not. No,
we're not. Um And in fact, an excited French official
wrote a letter that caught the attention of a U
S patent officer located in France named J. D. Brown
in eighteen fifty five. Publication claimed that, in part, this
letter read, I continue to think the plant is one

(16:34):
of the most valuable which exists. That it will yield
the greatest advantage not only in Europe, where the climate
allows the late maze to grow to perfection, but in
the tropics, where it may replace the sugar cane. It's
a big deal. Um. Brown realized that the success of
sorghum in Europe meant it might have success in parts
of the US that previously hadn't been able to grow it,

(16:56):
like the North as well in eighteen fifty four and
returned to the US with sorghum seeds, and a few
years later farmers received about three d bushels of sorghum
courtesy of the U. S. Patent Office. But this wasn't
the only way sorgham's popularity as a food source and
overall crop grew in the United States. On the flip

(17:17):
side of this story, a British man named Leonard Ray
transported sorgham seeds and or plants I wasn't too clear
on it from South Africa to New York and eighteen
fifty seven. However, he gave the sorghum to Southerners, where
sorgham was quickly adopted and grown. US nurserymen also helps

(17:37):
spread sorgham seeds across the country, including William Robert Prince.
Aroundabouts eighteen fifty four. Prince receives sorgham seeds that he
planted at his family nursery in New York and distributed
the seeds for other nurseries to do the same. The
results were pretty good and not at all cumbersome when
it came to production, which was a plus, uh, particularly

(17:59):
in regions like the Midwest US. Henry Steel Old Coots,
also a nurseryman, did something similar and went on to
publish his significant work in Sorgo Emphy the Chinese and
African Sugarcanes. And by the way, all these people have
interesting stories, so if you want to learn more, check
them out. We're gonna shout out a source at the end.
But it was one of the not few cases. This

(18:20):
happens kind of frequently. But sometimes we're like, you know,
this episode is getting along, I've got to pick and choose.
Where's the actual food where we're talking about. Yeah, I
could go on this tangent about this dude for another
like twenty minutes. But maybe maybe that's a different Maybe
that's a whole different episode. Maybe that's a little side
side dish for for another day side dish. I like that. Okay, Well,

(18:44):
back to the sorghum syrup. Yeah, through all of these efforts,
Northerners pretty much achieved what they wanted to. Through all
of this, sorghum rose to become a replacement for sugar
that was easy to produce at home. Far cheaper than sugarcane.
In places like rural Appalachia, it ended up in all
kinds of things from beer as a milk substitute and

(19:06):
chicken feed, and in non southern regions it contributed millions
of dollars as a crop. Yeah, um, lots of lots
of towns, especially throughout Appalachia, but I think kind of
anywhere that it was being grown as as a as
a sugar crop would have had a sorgham mill at

(19:26):
somewhere within the town where farmers could bring their sorgham
stocks for pressing, and nearby v's would be set up
to slowly cook the juice down into syrup, stirred and
skimmed continually. And in Appalaches specifically, this was like a
like a popular early autumn community activity sometimes called a
stir off, where you would go and you would like

(19:48):
kind of gossip and maybe like meet some cute people
and you know, get some socialization going, right, Okay, I
like it. Like it. When the Civil War sent prices
of sugarcane I racketing, sorghum um only became more popular
as an alternative. President Lincoln, who was a big fan
and even brought sorghum up in one of his presidential debates.

(20:11):
You can read the whole exchange. Quite it's not really
what you would think it would be, but yes, brought
it up. The Union Commissioner of Agriculture wrote in eighteen
sixty two, the new product of sorghum cane has established
itself as one of the permanent crops of the country,
and it enabled the interior states to supply themselves with
a home article of molasses, thereby keeping down the prices

(20:34):
of other molasses from any great advance over former rates,
which otherwise would have been a result of or of
course um. The Civil War cut production of sugar cane
in the U. S and Louisiana and cut off water
trade routes into the South of stuff like sugarcane from
the Caribbean, meaning that the South was also looking for

(20:57):
alternate sources of sweeteners and as sorghum fit the bill
uh Southerners at the time wrote about it as being
one of the pillars of the Confederacy right, and one
of the Confederacy's prisoner of war camps was even called
Camp Sorghum. The prisoners received meager rations, often including low

(21:18):
quality sorghum. So I think that's why. Yeah, yeah, Um.
And it's it's uh that was about to be a pun.
It it's it's sticky. It's really sticky as a topic.
I'm sorry, it's just the best word for it. That's
It's not my fault, Um that language exists like this, Uh,
because like, like production of anything in the South was

(21:40):
so often done by enslaved people's and of course, as
we've talked about in in other episodes, uh, a lot
of the time, when you get into discussing something a
food product that became popular during Civil War or um,
during reconstruction, you start talking, you see all of this

(22:00):
written evidence from white people kind of taking credit for
everything and not mentioning the fact that they probably learned
what they were doing from black people. M hm. And
that seems very much to be the story here, right, yeah. Um.

(22:20):
And after the war's end, Uh, Sorgham did see a
lot of ups and downs in terms of popularity and
production in the United States, and a lot of it
did revolve around whatever was going on with sugar prices
and production. Yeah, like sugarcane. So when things with sugar
weren't looking great for whatever reason, sorghum was proposed as

(22:42):
the solution, often by government officials. Researchers dedicated their lives
to it. There was a lot of funding thrown towards sorghum.
Things were looking really great until they weren't. Interest in
sorghum dramatically dropped off. There are a couple of reasons
for this. Uh. Firstly, the amount of sugar sorghum produced

(23:03):
was less than what was expected. Secondly, appearance. People had
long love the crystallized appearance of sugarcane sugar and sorghum
just didn't look as appetizing in their minds. And Lastly, competition,
especially with the sugar beat. Yeah, technology during the eighteen
nineties advanced to allow the refinement of good white crystal

(23:26):
sugar from sugar beets. Refining crystal sugar from sorghum is
more expensive than either from caine or um or after
that tech developed from beats. Sorghum syrup also suffered during
reconstruction from its association with wartime. As we've seen with
other food products, people are like, oh, man, that's what
we ate out of necessity, don't want anything to do

(23:47):
with it anymore, right, But Before all that, Uh. Sorghum
was grown here in the US primarily as a sweetener,
and it was once the most popular sweetener in the
United States until Americans started to move to the semi
arid West, an environment that necessitated crops like sorghum. Uh,

(24:07):
So that kind of was a boost. Moonshiners gave sorgama
boost during the Depression. Um. By the nineteen fifties, sorgan
grown in the US and was used for forage however, um.
But yeah, whenever prices of sugar went up, interest in
sorghum syrup saw a corresponding spike. So they're very, very related.
Through all of this, Americans introduced sorghum to Australia in

(24:32):
the nineteen hundreds, and by the nineteen fifties that had
become a substantial crop in Australia and also South Africa.
After American sorghum production was threatened by things like down
emailed green bug and a thrack nurse. I hope I'm
close on that one. In the sixties, breeders got to
work creating hybrids resistant to all those things, and through

(24:53):
that the crop survived and bounced back. In two thousand
and six, Anhuser Busch launch Red Bridge, the first nationally
available sorghum beer, touting how it was an alternative for
those allergic to wheat or gluten. It's also being investigated
as a replacement for corn as as a human and
or animal food in areas that are currently experiencing warming

(25:17):
and or drought due to climate change. Um. It's it's
got like a like a smaller leaf to root ratio
and also this wax layer on its leaves that make
it just really good at taking up and holding onto water. Um.
It's like three times more drought resistant than corn. So yeah,
that's that's a pretty big deal. Yeah yeah. Um. And

(25:39):
as promised, shout out to the website True Treats run
by historians Susan Benjamin and their article The Triumphs Defeats
an Ultimate victory of the Sorghum syrup. Um. It expounds
on a lot of stuff we mentioned here that we
had to whittle down, and it's really fascinating. Highly recommend
checking it out. Uh, just so much stuff in there.

(26:00):
Sometimes we're reading these articles and doing this research and
I'm thinking, how is this not a movie already or something? Oh? Absolutely? Yeah.
And there were I I was telling Annie before we
started recording that this is one of those topics that
I felt like I could have just kept reading about
for for days. There are so many, so many firsthand

(26:23):
accounts UM of of this sudden boom in in sorghum
syrup U from like eighteen fifty five to like eighteen
sixty two. UM it overnight became wildly widespread. UM, and
such an interesting story and UM in such a like

(26:45):
such a relatively rare product these days that UM, I really,
I really hope that that more more humans UM in
the United States get the chance to try try it
as a grain, as a flower. UM, try sorghum syrup.
Get your hell if if if you, if you drink alcohol,
will get yourself and buyed you. UM. It's so good.

(27:05):
So it's so like funky and weird and grassy, and
it's great. Bid you episode in our future, I think, Yeah, Well,
with that recommendation. In the meantime, I think that's what
we have to say about sorghum syrup for now. It is.
We do have some listener mail thout for you. We do,

(27:27):
but first we have one more group break for a
word from our sponsor and we're back. Thank you, sponsored, Yes,
thank you. The snows snows mhm syrup like all my

(27:53):
syrup because I use it so rarely. It crystallizes and
it just it looks at through the bottle. You can
you can like remelt it. You can like just put
in like a water bath on the stove, water bath, Yeah,
and just melt it back into that decrystallizing Yeah. Usually

(28:15):
that'll work. Okay, that's good. That's a new hope you've
given me. All right, Vivian wrote. Finally got around to
catching up on a few episodes while running some tedious
experiments in lab. Very very much appreciate savor for powering

(28:36):
me through. I wanted to share with you the multifarious
world of Taiwanese and mangoes in case you hadn't come
across it in your reading. Mangoes were first introduced there
by the Dutch in the seventeenth century. In Taiwan, currently
produces an incredible selection of localized varieties. Yeah, the only
one I've had the fortune to try is the Haitian

(28:58):
mango hey black, referring to its dark green skin which
persists even when it's right Schion fragrant um I tried
it for the first time in Minnesota a little after
the prime season of July August, and shipped all the
way from Vietnam, where it sown simply as the Taiwan
mango and apparently incredibly popular, at least with the Vietnamese

(29:20):
American population in the Twin Cities. My first bite was
a revelation. The flesh was succulent, or q as a
Taiwanese blog called it, with a godly almost floral aroma.
People say it has a long and like taste, which
I personally didn't quite register. Surprisingly indispensable to the experience

(29:41):
was the skin, which was aromatic itself and surpassingly crunchy.
It's best when not quite right. When it's very ripe,
the flesh is still sweet but no longer has the
floral tones, and the skin becomes bitter. Here's a picture.
Hard to tell, but they're massive as long as my head.
I gave on the internet for some his tree and
gleaned this from the Taiwanese Wiki. Despite being around since

(30:04):
the days of Japanese occupation early twentieth century, it only
became commercially popular in recent years. It used to take
two years to bear one crop of fruit, and only
after many years of cultivation did farmers adapted to the
local environment. People were confused by its perpetially green skin,
thinking it unripe and unfit to eat. However, most sources

(30:25):
I found in the Internet credit a farmer named Wong
Chau Kai for planting the first Haitian mango in Really
hope these get more accessible in the US. I love
champagne mangoes, but there's so much more out there. May
the forest be with you. Would love to hear some
reactions to the Kenobi TV show in a future episode.

(30:46):
You know, we almost did that for April Fools. We
almost just did a like Food Star Wars. Yeah, or
just Annie and Lauren chatting about whatever it is that
we so not out side the remel possibility. Yeah? Absolutely
u um. Also right, thank you for for writing in

(31:09):
about eating mango skin. That was oh goodness. A couple
of people wrote in on Twitter to be like, dude,
you said that the skin of mangoes is inedible. It's
not inedible, it's delicious. What are you talking about? Um?
So so good point. I've never done that, but I
am curious to try it the next time. A good
mango season yes, and also I love um all of

(31:32):
these varieties, and I would very much like to try
them because I do love. This is something as I'm reading,
I'm angry that I have not experienced. I had a
good friend from Taiwan in high school and she would
get me. She would find me these fruits, and I
can't remember the names of them, so it's possible that
I had tried one. Uh, but they were delicious and

(31:54):
I'm so eager to try more to expand my palate.
Always always man goes so good, uh, Colleen wrote. Cast
iron has been with me my entire life. Growing up,
my mom used hers, and when I moved out, I
got my own brand new pan, pot, Dutch oven, griddle,

(32:17):
and lid. Those were not preseasoned and were a beautiful
gray silver. It was before Google, and I only had
the instructions that the manufacturer provided. That was the one
and only time I ever seasoned. My mother never seasoned either.
Cast Iron has become something that is causing high levels
of anxiety for others, but there's no need online cast
iron instructions are all over the place in contradictory. This

(32:40):
could be because it's complicated, but it's not What it
actually means is that cast iron care is whatever works.
In other words, it doesn't matter. The few cases where
it matters is with professional cooks, is chefs, people trying
to sell something, and influencers fishing for views. And the
person who wants to be able to slide a friday
around a dry pan like it's in microgravity might want

(33:03):
to do all that extra work. That is not me
and it's not necessary. Let's slow down and ponder for
a minute. People have been cooking with iron since the
iron age. Back then, people couldn't be picky about oil
and they're cooking fire, didn't have a digital display to
show the temperature. They lived a simple life with their
cast iron, and we can too. For cooking. I start

(33:23):
by coating my cast iron and oil whatever I'm cooking with.
I then add a splash more of oil for the cooking.
Iron heats and cools slower than stainless steel, So I
set my burner to where I want it. Turning the
burner too high does not save any time. I tried
it once. I was going back and forth with turning
the heat down, then back up and down again. It
took an epoch. I ended up eating cereal while I cooked.

(33:46):
The final product went straight into the fridge is leftovers.
Cast Iron is slower than stainless, but not too much.
I went my hands under the faucet, then flicked the
water drops into the pan. The water will pop and
sizzle when the pan is ready. I had onion, sweet pepper,
and garlic while it's warming. Most of the time, it's
ready before I have everything chopped. If the food isn't
cooking fast enough, I turn up the burner. If it's

(34:07):
too hot, I take it off the burner. If I'm
actively cooking, not taking a nap, the color, sounds, and
smells tell me if I need to adjust the heat.
The extra time it takes to heat makes it easy
to make adjustments before anything gets burned. I only have
trouble when toasting pine nuts. The pan is dry, so
there's nothing to listen for. After cooking, the pan stays hot,

(34:28):
so I don't wash it right away. I enjoy my food.
Iron is porous and it rests, so don't ever soak it,
except if it's really bad. I fill it with hot,
soapy water to sit, but I don't leave it for
too long. If I don't have the spoons to wash
the pan that night. I did manage to cook after all.
Then I rinse it, shake off the water, and set
it aside. It's just as easy to scrub a pot

(34:49):
today as it is tomorrow. Who am I getting I've
left that poor pan four weeks cleaning. I hate washing dishes.
When I get around to it, I scrub in hot
water with dish soap, using a bore bristle brush and
a bamboo scraper for tough spots. In the worst case,
I've used a Brillo pad. Do they make those anymore?
I haven't needed to do that since I was a
kid washing my mom's pans. After cleaning, I show my

(35:12):
cast iron some love. I let it dry overnight or longer.
Then I coated in oil and return it to the rack.
The oil will partly soak in, partly dry, and some
will drip off. I'll put it away a day or
more later. When my cast iron was young, it would
occasionally get a layer of rust, giving it a bronze hue.
The rest came off with oil and a paper towel.
If that wasn't enough, then I used oil and a

(35:34):
pot scrubber. I've never had to, but I understand the
bad cases may need sand paper. I used my cast
iron for everything. For many years. I only had a
four piece cast iron set pan, a pot, Dutch oven,
the grittle and the lid, and one stainless pot until
my sister gave me a stainless set uh T L

(35:54):
d R. Don't worry about cast iron, keep it oiled,
and don't put it in the sink. I love this.
I love this so much. Oh oh, how lovely. Yes,
it's a it's like reclaiming the all of that worry

(36:15):
that I poured into the episode. At least it's like
a nice little It's okay, it's gonna be okay. It is,
it is. It is very forgiving. Um. I have seen
like a completely wrecked cast iron pan be brought back
from the brink um, So it's right, like you don't like,

(36:37):
don't worry that hard. I feel like we're this is
good advice. So I think we're ending on a very
hopeful note. I can save my syrup can save. Yeah,
I mean just in general, like, keep it oiled, don't
put it in the sank. You'll be fine. Yes, yes,
I also really enjoy that you were able to is

(37:00):
to have four pots essentially for for a long time.
I've also been loving that existence for a long time.
It's pretty good. Oh yeah, I use two maybe three
pans pop pots and pans maybe no four for you're
right for yeah, I think that's about you know, that's
about right. For other people not so much. I have more,

(37:24):
but I essentially only use yeah about three or four? Yeah, yeah,
A good goodness, a good Dutch evan can really take
your places. Now, that's what I don't have, and I
do want. Well, maybe one day, maybe one day we'll
get a sponsor, because there's no other way I could

(37:46):
do it otherwise. No. Well, thanks so much to these
listeners for writing in. If you would like to write
two as you can or email as hello at savior
pot dot com. We're also on social media. You can
find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, and we do
hope to hear from you. Savor is a production of
I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, you

(38:07):
can visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Thanks as always
to our super producers Dylan Fagin and Andrew Howard. Thanks
to you for listening, and we hope that lots more
good things are coming your way.