Sheryl Canter writes about the chemistry of seasoning cast iron cookware, plus popovers and cleaning tips.
Commenters cite her flax seed oil seasoning method, but others say it is a poor idea, citing cost and results.
I saw this post a few years ago. Having read her other two posts on seasoning cast iron, I came to the conclusion that she was just making the science up as she went along.
In "Perfect Popovers" [1] she advises Avocado Oil for its high smoke point, out of fear that letting the oil smoke will release carcinogenic free radicals into your food.
Then in this "Science-Based How-To" (three weeks later) she switches to flaxseed oil and suddenly isn't concerned about the free radicals anymore.
There is no hypothesis testing, and there are no measurements of free radicals or polymerization. It's all conjecture.
Her third post [2] calls out "black rust"/magnetite as a key component of seasoning cast iron, because "someone sent me some links". The links are not provided.
I have no problem with her blogging about her experiences seasoning cast iron, but what she's doing is not science, and it is misleading to call it "science based". If the author were a chemist, biologist, or nutritionist, I could defer to her education and wouldn't be writing this comment. But her bio [3] doesn't indicate any such training.
[1] http://sherylcanter.com/wordpress/2010/01/perfect-popovers-and-how-to-clean-reseason-cast-iron/
[2] http://sherylcanter.com/wordpress/2010/02/black-rust-and-cast-iron-seasoning/
[3] http://sherylcanter.com/background.php
The flaxseed thing comes from a 2010 blog article [1], which purports to be a scientific approach to seasoning pans. As people have found out, it's unfortunately not a good idea.
Aside from the fact that flaxseed is ridiculously expensive compared to the traditional alternatives, it creates a brittle surface and flakes off after a while. It also requires a ridiculous number of coatings to get to the right level of smoothness. It's just not worth it compared to something cheap like canola or soy.
A lot of people have looked into it. Here [2] is a good Reddit post from /r/castiron.
But among all of the technical discussions about seasoning it's easy to forget that a pan generally only needs to be seasoned once, and most pans you can buy are well pre-seasoned, and using the pan for cooking is also a form of seasoning.
[1] http://sherylcanter.com/wordpress/2010/01/a-science-based-technique-for-seasoning-cast-iron/
[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/castiron/comments/5owtnm/why_i_dont_recommend_flax_seed_oil/
If you don't heat the oil above its smoke point then nothing will happen to the oil, chemically. This is not what you want when seasoning cookware. The purpose of heating the oil and cookware is to induce polymerization so that the oil becomes bonded to the surface.
As far as I know, this blog post [1] is the originator for the recommendation to use flaxseed oil specifically for seasoning cast iron. I am not a chemist, so I can't vouch for the accuracy of the information.
[1] http://sherylcanter.com/wordpress/2010/01/a-science-based-technique-for-seasoning-cast-iron/
After a lake vacation in western NC, I stumbled across my first Griswold Cast Iron pan. The bug hit me and I've collected a couple of others since then. My favorite so far is the Colonial Skillet Griswold 666 (aka Satan's Helper). Makes an amazing mix of eggs, potatoes and bacon. I started looking up the best way to season these pans and found [0] and [1] very insightful.
[0] https://sherylcanter.com/wordpress/2010/01/a-science-based-technique-for-seasoning-cast-iron/
[1] https://sherylcanter.com/wordpress/2010/02/black-rust-and-cast-iron-seasoning/
Seems to be a real thing[1]. I took you literally at first, but I guess you mean you’re looking for a specific result and not seeing it? This article[2] makes a case for using (pure) flax oil and a special procedure.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasoning_(cookware)
[2] https://sherylcanter.com/wordpress/2010/01/a-science-based-technique-for-seasoning-cast-iron/
I think you've mis-read (in fairness, my phrasing was confusing). My comment was about the flax article (http://sherylcanter.com/wordpress/2010/01/a-science-based-technique-for-seasoning-cast-iron/), not the oil.