Took me 3 months to figure out why my rice kept burning, and the fix was a $2 thrift shop find
I eat rice almost every day because it's cheap, like 50 cents a serving cheap, so I thought I had it down. But for almost 3 months straight my rice kept coming out burnt on the bottom and mushy on top, and I was wasting like $6 a month tossing bad batches. I tried everything, rinsing it more, using less water, lower heat, even bought a $15 nonstick pot that didn't help at all. Then my neighbor Rosa came over while I was cooking and asked why I was using a pot that was too wide for my burner, she said the flame was licking up the sides and cooking the bottom faster than the top. I dug out an old heavy pot from a garage sale, 2 bucks, and the rice came out perfect the very first time. Turns out the pot I was using had a thin base that just couldn't spread heat evenly, and I never thought to check that because I was so focused on the rice itself. Has anyone else had a kitchen problem that turned out to be the cookware and not the food?
My grandma swore by her old cast iron skillet for cornbread and I ignored her advice for years because who wants to lug that heavy thing around. Then my cornbread kept burning on the edges while staying raw in the middle and I finally tried her skillet, and it came out perfect like magic. Sometimes the old folks know what they're talking about with cookware.
Ha, so grandma was right all along and you had to learn it the hard way! Cast iron is one of those things where the old ways just win, no contest. It holds heat so even that your cornbread cooks all the way through instead of burning on the edges. Your grandma is probably somewhere laughing at you right now. Next time just listen to her from the start and save yourself the burnt batches.