Other way round. Slow cooling increases grain size. But modern techniques can control cooling rates to achieve whatever phases and grain size they want. The science is pretty sophisticated.
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This is sound logic, and a similar filter applies in many areas. Safety regulation is one. āWe didnāt have seatbelts/pool fences/bike helmets/gun safes etc. when I was a kid and I survived just fine!ā
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I love my cast iron but I hate the electric stove I use it on. Iāve burned the seasoning off my skillets so many times. Itās far easier to see how hot a gas burner is.
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I went to āSerious Eatsā to find the answer. People who addressed the question were divided but most denied any problems with cooking acidic foods while others said they definitely got a metallic taste (which Iāve experienced). So try it, I guess. Iām off to Chowhound to see what the forums there have said.
Cooking with cast iron over a campfire is easily one of my favorite ways to cook. The results are unlike anything else.
Alton Brown has some awesome suggestions for cast iron cooking and cookware care, Iād bet most of those clips from his show are on youtube by now.
Cast Iron cookware seasoning is one of those topics where one can read 60+ comments from well meaning, educated, even tempered people and end up knowing less than when they didnāt know anything.
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Cast iron has a rind. If you remove it, you may as well be cooking on stainless. Donāt sandblast or machine away the rind from your cast iron!
As for evenness of heat, and new .vs. old - I donāt have any newly made cast iron, but I have a pretty comprehensive set of old stuff from various sources and makersā¦ the way to find out if you have an unevenly heating pan is to cook with it. If you find that it heats unevenly, get another pan. They are easily found cheap at garage sales and flea markets, none of mine cost me more than $20.
Heavy Metal: the Science of Cast Iron Cooking
Cast Iron Nutrition: Studies show that cooking in cast iron can leach iron into food. Foods that are high in moisture, very acidic, or are long-cooked leach the most. For many people the extra iron is beneficial, but for a small minority of people who are sensitive to iron it can be harmful. The most quoted study on the effects of cast iron cookware on iron levels is the July 1986 study in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association. The pan used in that study had only been seasoned by daily usage for a couple of weeks prior to the study. As the study pointed out, better seasoned pans leach less iron. There are no data on iron leaching in decades-old pans.
Hereās the abstract from that Dietetic Journal:
Iron content of food cooked in iron utensils.
H C Brittin
C E Nossaman
Journal of the American Dietetic Association (Impact Factor: 3.92). 08/1986; 86(7):897-901.
Source: PubMed
ABSTRACT Twenty foods were cooked in iron and non-iron utensils. Also, three foods were cooked in two iron skillets. Three replications were made, and cooking time and pH for each food were determined. Duplicate samples of the raw and the cooked foods were dried, ashed, and analyzed for moisture and iron content. Iron content was determined by atomic absorption spectrophotometry. Most of the foods (90%) contained significantly more iron when cooked in iron utensils than when cooked in non-iron utensils. Acidity, moisture content, and cooking time of food significantly affected the iron content of food cooked in iron utensils. Perhaps because of differing amounts of previous use, cooking in different iron skillets resulted in some variation in the iron content of food.
Hereās a Link to Nossmanās Thesis:
IRON CONTENT OF FOOD COOKED IN IRON UTENSILS (2.9 MB pdf)
Edit: Where the heck is @catgrin ā Iām tired of having to look stuff upā¦ (thatās her job) 
Edit2: forgot to highlight lines on seasoning.
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Eggs would slide around like that too in my current generation Lodge with that much bacon grease in it. It doesnāt have quite the sheen thoā¦ but i love it.
I recently bought an older Lodge 4-in-1 with the hammered finish (basically a deep chicken frying pan with a second pan that can be either a shallow skillet itself or a lid for the fryer)ā¦ not sure what the 4th part of the 4-in-1 isā¦ was kind of rough when I bought itā¦ cleaned it up, seasoned itā¦ very niceā¦
Sounds like that could even be an issue with the consistency of seasoning from pan to pan and user to user.
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the intersection of intelligent debate, low stakes subjects, opinion, and limited double blind studies is where the party is at 
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Well, we donāt have to be worked to death at that miserable job. There are others.
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Bah. Copper pans or nothing. I have some cast iron and some steel pans, but when it comes eggs, give me a copper Japanese Tamago pan any day of the week. I like my eggs to be pretty!
Ok ok, maybe thatās more of an omelet than a scramble, but still. I do prefer my copper pans for just about everything.
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For someone with entropy in his nick, you seem not to know what it means.
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But I never see them at flea markets or in garbage cans! Thatās where good cast iron comes from. Um, and also from old collapsing structures in the woods of West Virginia.
Can you recommend an affordable source of a good copper egg pan? French or Japanese doesnāt matter to me.
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I like to put my pans on the heat before I begin anything. Then Iāll go to the pantry to get my ingredients. After all the prep work is done, the pans have usually been on the heat for a while and donāt really have hot spots. If Iām using one pan for multiple things, Iāll cook the hottest items first and reduce the heat for the next. It seems to cool more evenly than it heats but that may just be my impression.
Thanks for the followup post on cast iron. I really do feel I get a better cook from pre war pans. Why thatās so is probably something that will be argued forever. My take is that most things made in pre-war America tend to last and perform better than the modern version.
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Fans of the Martin Guitar Company would agree.
I share your experiences with the evenness of cast iron heatā¦
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The rule of thumb at my house is that any durable goods you purchase will last almost exactly half as long as the worn out model you are replacing.
This rule does not hold true with cars. But certainly with refrigerators, dishwashers, clotheswashers, water heaters, clothesdryers, faucets, etc. etc. etcā¦
I have noticed that you can get old-fashioned quality if you are ultra rich. For example, you can get the functional equivalent of a $50 faucet set from the 1950s today for $1200 from Sign of the Crab. Unfortunately I do not have $1200 to spend on faucets, so I have to rebuild a 1950s one instead.
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Iām fortunate to live in a neighborhood built in the 1920ās. Many of the homes still have the original stoves. This one has a Chambers. Kind of on topic - it uses a cast iron lined oven. You can heat it up, turn off the gas, and continue cooking. Fun stuff.
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