Cast Iron Skillet

"This is a cast iron skillet which I bought in 1982. It is the last remaining piece from the set of original Le Creuset saucepans. The first one was bought in 1981 and was a Dutch oven style with fluted handles, a cream enamelled interior and orange enamel exterior, and was the pinnacle of sophistication. For a long time it was the only saucepan that I possessed, due to the eye watering expense involved. It was used for boiling, frying, baking and roasting. My sister used to laugh at me for making circular lasagnes. It marks the beginning of our culinary renaissance, when we didn’t know our sushi from our sashimi; when red peppers were not to be found in supermarkets and when pineapples only came in tins. Maeve Binchy (another National Treasure) wrote in 2003 about how truly awful food used to be in Ireland, in an article in the Guardian at https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2003/oct/29/features11.g2 My mother’s saucepans were stainless steel, my grandmother’s were aluminium; I like to think that my great-grandmother’s were also cast iron."