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New Columns appear each Tuesday. 31JAN06 Doral Chenoweth writes about the business of restaurants and the food industry in the Columbus, Ohio, Metro area. Reader comments are welcome by telephone. 614-538-1822. Email the Grump: thegrumpygourmet@wowway.com Send food stuff here: iPLATE@grumpygourmetusa.com Send weird stuff here: alferd_e_packer@wowway.com E-mail messages must include name and telephone for a reply. |
 Chef Seifert with Staub ironware 
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31JAN06 Gourmet Galaxy Cafe guest chefs Plan 50s Recipes Using Cast Iron Cast iron cookery dates back to the Middle Ages. After humankind discovered fire and invented spit roasting over open flames, the next step had to be frying, boiling and, eventually, baking. In those pre-Teflon centuries, man learned how to make molds in sand and fill them with molten iron. If the cooled metal came out flat, it was a skillet as we know it today. If it had a rim, it was a frying pan once polished smooth and cured. All that history has evolved to the point that, at least up until the 1950s or so, every family cooked with cast iron skillets, pots, kettles and griddles. Who can forget iron trays with indentions shaped like a half ear of corn? Cornbread sticks, remember? The 2006 Dispatch Home & Garden Show, opening Feb. 25, will highlight cast iron cookery. One will be surprised to know how many top chefs today still use cast iron something. Clark's Dining Room, 40 miles east on Old Rt. 40 in Jacksontown,Ohio, may be the nation's greatest proponent of cast iron fried chicken. Last year Clark's served 44,000 chicken dinners, all in skillets dating back 80-plus years. The owners are fast to say they buy only from Lodge Mfg., a small family-owned foundry in Tennessee. That firm may be the world's leader when it comes to pure cast iron - enameling as is done in France. Spagio chef Hubert Seifert's establishment in Grandview Heights cooks daily soups in a huge iron pot manufactured in France. In his Spagio Cellars, his cookware display has the Staub brand iron ware. It is enameled. Sur La Table, with Shelley Owen appearing at the H&G's Gourmet Galaxy Café, sells and uses the Lodge Mfg. Iron ware. Gourmet Galaxy Cafe sponsor Whole Foods sells the Le Creuset iron cookware, enameled, however. This year's star chef attraction, Tom Johnson, former Ohio State Official Chef, will be doing his Chicago Deep Dish pizza - in Le Creuset, his favorite. + + + + + Why Cast Iron Cookery This Year… In planning this 50th anniversary of the Home & Garden Show, Mike Poleway of Event Marketing Group casually suggested in a meeting that we theme the cooking show. Find chefs who still do drop biscuits, pot roast, soups, cornbread using cast iron. Well, in booking 30-plus Columbus chefs, all jumped at the idea of using cast iron. While not all chefs will be cooking with iron, many liked the idea and will consider recipes for the 2007 shows. FOR SHOW INFORMATION: call Donna Jarvis-Miller, Dispatch Marketing, 614-461-8050. by Doral Chenoweth 614-538-1822 |
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