Grimly Curmudgeon wrote:
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember "Peter C"
saying something like:

Prior to use for the first time give the inside a smear of cooking oil
and rub in, after washing do the same, for me it seems to preserve the
coating.

I do that, and I never wash it with detergent. Just run it under the hot
water and wipe it dry/clean with paper towel.

You should have taken it back as soon as. It's a little late by now I
imagine.

The same for cast iron pans works well and builds up a non-stick surface.

You don't clean a cast iron pan like that. There is nothing to stop you
doing so of course but the pan is seasoned with a coating of resin
obtained by heating oil in it. Greases and oils form this resin during
use.

Animal fats and vegetable oils oxidise into a layer of resin and this
patina should be left intact on frying pans. I wouldn't use a cast iron
saucepan of course, so can't speak for them.

To clean such a pan, you use it and then wipe it out when hot, with a
tissue or wad of newspaper.

Overheating a nonstick pan will ruin it, as will cooking sugary stuff
in it. Sugars have the ability to scratch, they are OK when dissolved
or melted but mixing sugar in them will damage them.

As with using metal or abrasives on them, poor handling techniques will
damage them but the most probable cause of failure is overheating.