I'm concerned about teflon and other nonstick coatings on cookware, but I find cast iron to be difficult to clean (with most prevailing wisdom seeming to amount to "use olive oil and salt, and leave a layer on there rather than properly cleaning to a truly sanitized surface")
I've investigated many of the leading ceramic cookware and have found that most ceramic coatings degrade very quickly, even if you're diligent with not using metal utensils on them. It struck me then how I haven't really been able to find a cooking pan that's made entirely out of ceramic. Something tells me repeatedly heating and cooling what is essentially a shallow-sided crockpot could be dangerous for a number of reasons, but in theory would such a pan work well for just about any recipe you could throw at it and not have a ton of sticking?
Otherwise, I'm left with carbon steel pans, which I understand are similar to cast iron but have natural nonstick properties and can be fully cleaned. I'm wondering if that might be the best. I'm just tired of not being able to cook a proper sunny side fried egg without it sticking to whatever surface I'm using (and even then, having to apply a lot of fat to have a hope of not breaking the yolks)
This turned into a mini-vent post and I apologize for that; just at my wits end with how many of my dishes are turning out now that I've forgone my nonstick pans! Thanks for reading
The bit about lye makes sense, I'll probably give cast iron another try. May get a carbon steel wok too since I've been making more stir-fry these days