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ROUSES.COM
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cast iron
I returned the skillets to my parents’ basement before
we all returned to New Orleans that summer, but a
ritual had begun. Over the next several years, I took
my kids camping up in the Northeast every summer,
each time stopping at my parents’ house first to grab
the skillets, which were now deemed as essential to our
adventure as tents, flashlights and mosquito repellent.
Then, about three years ago, I didn’t bother to return
the skillets to my folks’ basement, and I simply brought
them back to New Orleans, with me. And rather than
have them collect dust and rust sitting on a shelf all year
waiting for a camping trip, I began to cook regularly
with them, adding my own family’s layer of dining
DNA to these pans, whose provenance I do not know,
but they were certainly more than half a century old.
I say “were” because, well — something happened.
Something terrible and sad.
Last summer, me and the kids loaded up for another
trip to the Northeast. As whenever time allowed, we
booked Amtrak for this adventure. We loaded 12
cartons and suitcases aboard in New Orleans and when
we disembarked in Washington, D.C., eleven awaited
us at the baggage carousel.
You know where I’m going with this.
Vanished somewhere over those 1,100 miles of railway,
never to be found or recovered, was a suitcase containing
some linens, lanterns and two cast iron skillets. Filing
the lost luggage report, I was asked to estimate the value
of my missing possessions.
What price does one put on legacy?
The suitcase was never found, and I was never
reimbursed for the loss.
Is it a coincidence, or just timing and circumstance, that
me and my kids have never been camping since? Nor
have we ridden Amtrak.
But never forgotten are those gloriously dark nights and
cool, misty mornings nourished by campfire spaghettis
and omelets and fish fries of our campfires past, and the
pans that held them.
So little did I realize until they were gone, how much
of an emotional investment I had made into that dense
but oddly porous forged metal; two random items on a
basement shelf that I secreted away from my childhood
home — first for the convenience that they promised,
then for the story of my life that they told.
TIM ACOSTA
Rouses Marketing Director
My cast iron pots were blessed by no less than Chef Tory McPhail. On a recent
commercial shoot, he blessed my faithful skillets, pots and Dutch oven the
way the Pope blesses the faithful in St. Peter’s square.
My cast iron played supporting cast in our latest Rouses commercials, but it’s
starred in Rouses photo shoots for years. We cooked the Chappapeela Farms
pork chop on our cover on my flattop.
I bought my very first black iron skillet from the old gas station on Highway
90 where they sell crickets and shiners. (They don’t sell gas there anymore,
but you can still buy bait and shrimp boots.) I used to stop at the station just
to look at the pots when I drove back and forth between Thibodaux and New
Orleans, the way some people stop at car lots just to look at cars.
Now this was long before I had an outdoor kitchen. I just cooked outside on
King Kooker burners and a pit I kept under my carport. And these weren’t the
fancy Lodge pots that you can buy already seasoned; no, these came with a
paraffin wax coating you had to burn off and season yourself.
Eventually I stopped lurking at the bait shop and started buying, beginning
with a 15-inch skillet. (We made the smothered pork chops on page 36 in it.)
At last count, my collection is up to about two dozen. I break in every new cast
iron skillet with a batch of bacon — the grease gets into every nook and cranny.
Before you judge me, or any cast iron collector, it’s important to know that
there are different skillets and pots for different cooking jobs. And between
my grill and my Big Green Egg and my outdoor burners, I can work four or
five or six of them at once.
Cast iron is a must for cooking cajun — I make jambalaya, gumbo, pork
cracklins and sauce piquant in my cast iron pots. It’s game for anything, from
venison, rabbit and duck to poul’deau and squirrels. The best fried chicken,
red beans, white beans, and smothered pork chops are cooked in cast iron.
And the same black iron skillet used to cook steaks, roasts and soft shell
crabs can be used to cook Brussels sprouts, kale, even curried vegetables and
Like an old pair of shrimp boots or
a collection of vinyl LPs, they’re the
sort of curious objects that folks
from around here inexplicably make
precious room for in their luggage
when they evacuate for a hurricane.