Is cast iron cookware safe to use after having been through a house fire?
My mother's vintage home burned recently... it had solid pine car siding on the interior walls and ceilings. Anything that wasn't consumed by the fire was left coated with a mixture of black soot and pine oil that cooked out of the car siding. It was a particularly hot fire since her home also had a solid tin roof and that held the fire and heat in rather than allowing it to burn through and vent out. The fire was so hot that even the china and earthenware dishes incinerated turning to a powder. So I am concerned that the cast iron she salvaged might be contaminated. It is porous and I am concerned that it might have absorbed chemicals from the fire that would be at best unpleasant if they seeped into her food and at worst might be poisonous. Can anyone advise me about this?
Cast iron is not porous. It does not absorb contaminants.
What you need to do is make certain that the surface is clean.
That means heavy-duty scrubbing with a brillo pad. If you have a dishwasher, run the pans through several times. After that, I recommend rust remover, like naval jelly. Finally, rub it all over with vegetable oil, let it sit overnight, and then wash with soap and water.
This kind of cleaning is kind of sad, because old cast iron cookware is usually well-seasoned, and it takes many years to do that. The methods I just described will destroy the seasoning. But the seasoning is the part that might hold contaminants.
To season the pan again, never use soap on it and and rub cooking oil on the inside before you store it. Some people speed up the process by putting the oiled pan on a burner so it gets hot--but not hot enough to burn the oil.
I would never go through this to save a pan, but I understand why somebody would if it is all they could salvage.
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