Don't these pans last like generations, being passed down? I doubt your grandma and her grandma were bothering to apply 8 coats of flaxseed oil and heating it up to 1000 degrees and the pans would still perform as expected for ages
I've been using the cast iron pan handed down to me for like 30 years. It skipped a generation and went straight from my grandmother to me. I don't know exactly how old it is though
Sorry. Just trying to make a joke a grandmothers’ expense. My grandma had several artifacts that she claimed were ancient and/or hand crafted that were definitely not.
We were 3/4 of the way through mounting her hand painted collectible plates when we found two that were 100% identical.
Apparently you can't hear up tortillas in them without it forever getting scorch marks. I suppose only thing I haven't tried is using a machine sander on it to try to remove it.
In that case, try boiling a mixture of baking soda and water in it, then scouring it using tongs with copper wool (I’d probably use steel wool, but that might also leave scratches, I don’t know). If it’s giving your food a taste, it is coming off, just really gradually and under high heat.
Barkeepers friend (powdered metal and glass polish/cleaner, typically comes in a cannister) will get that off with a little bit of elbow grease.
Half the pans I've bought i got at a thrift store for like a buck because people thought they ruined them with a little bit of scorching., and I've gotten some nice stuff.
Unfortunately haven't found that cheaply available in Finland. I know about it too. It's the only thing I haven't tried other than straight up sanding it
So the legend of bar keepers friend is that it was invented after someone boiled a bunch of rhubarb greens and noticed it cleaned the pan. I reckon any green high in oxalic acid (the main ingredient in BKF) should do similarly enough to the actual product to let you know if it might work.