&quot;You don&#x27;t wash cast iron pans.&quot;<p>Except that you do. See <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.seriouseats.com&#x2F;2014&#x2F;11&#x2F;the-truth-about-cast-iron.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.seriouseats.com&#x2F;2014&#x2F;11&#x2F;the-truth-about-cast-iron...</a> , which points out there are a number of myths to do with cast iron pans, and says one of the things to do is:<p>&gt; Clean it after each use. Clean your pan thoroughly after each use by washing it with soap and water and scrubbing out any gunk or debris from the bottom. I use the scrubby side of a sponge for this.<p>&quot;The most important reason is that food cooked in a cast iron pan adds a character to it. It starts to shape the flavor of what you will cook in the pan later on.&quot;<p>On the flip side, quoting from <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;articles.latimes.com&#x2F;1999&#x2F;may&#x2F;12&#x2F;food&#x2F;fo-36243" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;articles.latimes.com&#x2F;1999&#x2F;may&#x2F;12&#x2F;food&#x2F;fo-36243</a> :<p>&gt; From the 1930s through the &#x27;60s, Americans were convinced you had to have a certain kind of bowl to make a proper green salad: a plain, unvarnished wooden bowl which could never be washed. The idea was that the wood &quot;cured&quot; over the years, making ever more exquisite salads. Actually, the dressing seeped into the wood and the oil turned hideously rancid, so the bowls stank to high heaven.<p>&gt; A sly foodie named George Rector had simply hoaxed the whole country. He&#x27;d invented the myth of the wooden salad bowl to spice up a story in the Sept. 5, 1936, issue of the Saturday Evening Post.<p>&gt; Playing on Americans&#x27; fear of snobbish French gourmets, he painted green salad as the most finicky dish of all. And the secret of the perfect salad? Rubbing a clove of garlic on a wooden bowl, which would give just enough garlic flavor but not (horrors!) too much . . . and then never washing the bowl.<p>&gt; The French themselves had never believed any such thing. In fact, Parisian gourmets didn&#x27;t even like garlic in their salads--as Rector knew perfectly well, since he&#x27;d worked in Parisian restaurants. In his cookbooks, he had published garlic-free French salad recipes.<p>Sounds like exactly the same belief.