The cast iron skillet has a long history of migration. The cast iron has its origins in China as early as the 5th century B.C.E. and only began to be imported to Europe in the 14th century C.E. on the trade networks of the Silk Road. During the industrial revolution in Europe and the United States from the 18th and 19th centuries C.E., cast iron cookware became a relatively cheap and incredibly sustainable way to feed families. For many enslaved African American domestic cooks or kitchen laborers, the cast iron skillet became a tool of both oppression and survival used daily. During the Great Migration, these durable appliances were one of the few items that these families could bring with them and impart onto their descendants.

I started my cooking journey in 2023 in my junior year of high school with a longer history of baking stretching back to middle school. Since my first semester of classes at City College last summer my cooking skills have been developing rapidly because I began cooking lunch for myself as often as I could. I feel confident with the oven, stovetop pots, instant pressure pot, and toaster oven we have but the one tool I feel disquieted to even begin using is our cast iron skillets. My family has few heirlooms in our apartment, and our one inherited cast iron skillet is perhaps our most cherished. One of the skillets belonged to my father’s grandmother, and where she got it I don’t know. She was born in 1920 in Maryland and went on to move to West Virginia and raise six of her own children and helped bring up my father and his sister there. Their cousins would also frequent the house growing up, and she often fed up to seven children off of soul food from the two cast iron skillets she had – the one I have today and another deep-dished skillet that’s still in West Virginia. As an African American family growing up in a 96% white state, some of the memories that still bring the most joy in the people she raised and loved is the food she cooked in those skillets in the challenging times of Jim Crow civil rights struggles that they all endured.
When my father traveled from New York back to West Virginia to attend her funeral in 2002, the only thing he physically took back with him was one of her cast iron skillets.
Today her cast iron skillet rests proudly on our stovetop, too emotionally significant to be pushed into the oven with our other pots and trays. My father’s grandmother handled her two cast iron skillets with great care and love for years of her life, and I don’t even know how to season or clean them. My apprehension to use her skillet is out of respect for all she’s done and fear of underwhelming or disappointing her legacy. But I suppose the first step in treating her skillet properly is to practice upkeep and preservation of it.