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

My husband - like many others - is obsessed with the seasoning', cleaning and pH levels of these hefty, hulking pans. Must I tolerate it?

I need some guidance on a tiny source of friction in my home life. Itis this: I live with a pan man and his man pans.

You know the kind I mean: rugged, elemental pans that you need to bench 160kg to lift; apocalypse-proof pans. Cast-iron and carbon-steel cookware isn't exclusively a male preserve - female cookery writers and chefs are enthusiastic; I have heard it described as tradwife adjacent" - but if the Marlboro Man cooked his horse, he would do so in these. Paradoxically, man pans are as delicate as they are tough: they need to be seasoned" (an arcane ritual), massaged with oils, protected from humidity and low-pH substances. They invite boring fanaticism (if podcasts made pans, it would be these), becoming a shorthand for a certain kind of man; in one Instagram skit, a pan fanatic castigates his bored housemates for wrecking his skillet's seasoning, reeling off the pH of blueberries (2.2"), jackfruit (4.1") and Lucky Charms (You'd never guess it: 1").