See the 'world's largest cast iron skillet' trucking down a highway
A company called Lodge Cast Iron could fry up 27 ostrich eggs in the monster pan.
Last week, a semi truck pulled a trailer marked "oversize load" down Interstate 59 on its way toward South Pittsburg, Tennessee. On that trailer sat a gargantuan cast iron skillet. A true behemoth. A leviathan of iron.
The skillet is the brainchild of Lodge Cast Iron, a company that makes cast-iron cookware. Lodge shared a short video showing the vast vessel rolling down the road, tweeting, "the World's Largest Cast Iron Skillet made its way to our campus to find its home in the Lodge Cast Iron Museum that is currently under construction."
If you were driving down I59 yesterday, you might have seen something special headed north! The World's Largest Cast Iron Skillet made its way to our campus to find its home in the Lodge Cast Iron Museum that is currently under construction. Learn more: https://t.co/ccaO9ysccD pic.twitter.com/eYO1VQH06g
— Lodge Cast Iron (@LodgeCastIron) January 13, 2022
The museum is expected to open in late summer 2022 in South Pittsburg where Lodge has been in residence since 1896. The skillet -- which spans 18 feet (5.5 meters) from handle to handle and weighs 14,360 pounds (6,500 kilograms) -- will be a big tourist draw. Lodge suggested the pan could handle 27 ostrich eggs.
Lodge is billing the ponderous pan as the "world's largest cast iron skillet," but that title may draw the attention of some other super-sized attractions. The town of Rose Hill, North Carolina, claims "the world's largest frying pan," a segmented beast that can handle 365 chickens at a time. Lodge's pan greatly outweighs the North Carolina one.
Long Beach, Washington, has "the world's largest frying pan…sort of," but it's not a real contender to the throne because the original metal of the pan's main body is long gone and has been replaced with a fiberglass replica.
Lodge's pan is truly made from cast iron, so it's likely the company has a good argument for its claim. Lodge is teasing that it will release more details on how the pan was made in the coming weeks. It involved a foundry in Alabama that specializes in large cast iron pieces.
As absurd as it is to see a 7-ton cast iron pan on wheels, there's also something heartwarming about humanity's capacity to make giant ridiculous things, not because we need them, but because they bring joy.