How can you tell if a man is really into cast-iron kitchenware? He’ll pansplain it to you

This is hilarious, I use cast iron daily, all those people who are finicky about it and think it's something that can't handle soap and water are just buying into the bullshit.

I literally do nothing but cook in mine and then clean it with a paper towel after use, if it needs some dawn and water to get off stuck bits of food...do that too.

Seasoning? Cook bacon in it, and stop using special tools use hard steel spatula and don't be gentle.

All of my CI is like glass. It's a tough rugged piece of cook ware that was born out of needing to be rough and rugged. Stop treating it like a non-stick pan. Just use the damn thing

I think the hand wringing about seasoning died down when the manufacturers switched to selling pre-seasoned pans.

I've never married, but I've always had housemates in shared rentals. What this (humorous but with a definite core of reality) piece points out is exactly why I tend to highlight the simplicity and durability of cast iron instead of making it out to be some kind of finicky diva. The cleaning is so easy and quick, you don't have to worry about scratching it or overheating it, yadda yadda.

I honestly think the bad taste left over from some people being all hyper protective or finicky about their cast iron is just an unfortunate result of poor seasoning. I too was overprotective for the few early years when I thought I knew how to achieve a good coating but actually didn't yet. And all that, in turn, is just an unfortunate downstream effect of the fact that cast iron skipped a generation or two in so many families, so much knowledge and practice was lost and had to be restarted by word of mouth and the Internet. Alas.

A new housemate moves in, sees the several cast iron items, and typically says something like "ooh, I'll leave those alone, I wouldn't want to mess up your special wares." -- because of the many pansplainers they've already encountered before. I tell them "no, seriously, you can play rough with these pans, it's fine. All I ask is that you not leave them sitting in water overnight." There really isn't that much they could do to harm them.

Pretty funny