GB
Chief Eating Officer
I am with everyone else here in that I do not use soap or detergent on my CI. I would not be opposed to using it sparingly from time to time once the seasoning was strong enough to be able to handle it, but right now I don't think my seasoning is not strong enough.
While I think the woman with the dry heaves over reacted, I also think that her reaction is not that crazy. Most people on this site know a lot about food and food safety and cooking materials and such. The average person does not know much about these things. How many people still think you have to cook pork until it is black and crispy to avoid getting sick for instance? Before I know about these things I would have been thinking the same thing the dry heave woman was probably thinking. If you went to someones house for dinner and they took a dirty plate from the table and dumped some salt on it and wiped it out with a paper towel and then served you dinner on that plate I think most of us would at least have a thought run through our heads about sanitation and washing with soap and if they do that with their plates then what else do they do that would make us think twice.
My point is that we all know that CI is fine treated the way we all treat it, but those not in the know really have no way of knowing that that is a sanitary thing to do and it is not unclean.
While I think the woman with the dry heaves over reacted, I also think that her reaction is not that crazy. Most people on this site know a lot about food and food safety and cooking materials and such. The average person does not know much about these things. How many people still think you have to cook pork until it is black and crispy to avoid getting sick for instance? Before I know about these things I would have been thinking the same thing the dry heave woman was probably thinking. If you went to someones house for dinner and they took a dirty plate from the table and dumped some salt on it and wiped it out with a paper towel and then served you dinner on that plate I think most of us would at least have a thought run through our heads about sanitation and washing with soap and if they do that with their plates then what else do they do that would make us think twice.
My point is that we all know that CI is fine treated the way we all treat it, but those not in the know really have no way of knowing that that is a sanitary thing to do and it is not unclean.