Motorists in Tennessee caught a glimpse of the world’s largest cast iron skillet this month thanks to a CDL-A truck driver who was tasked with hauling the gargantuan cookware to South Pittsburg.
The oversize load was hauled down Interstate 59 to its new home at the Lodge Cast Iron Museum. The museum is expected to open in late summer 2022 in South Pittsburg where Lodge has been in residence since 1896, Amanda Kooser reported for CNET.com. The iron skillet is 18 feet from handle to handle and weighs 14,360 pounds. It’s large enough to cook 27 ostrich eggs, according to Lodge Cast Iron.
The company tweeted a video of the skillet being hauled by a flatbed semi truck on Jan. 18.
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
Kooser reported that the town of Rose Hill, North Carolina, claims to be home to “the world’s largest frying pan,” a segmented beast that can handle 365 chickens at a time but is significantly smaller than Lodge’s skillet. Long Beach, Washington, has “the world’s largest frying pan…sort of,” the original metal of the pan’s main body has been replaced with a fiberglass replica, Kooser said. So, Lodge’s completely cast iron pan takes the cake as not only the world’s largest cast iron skillet, but maybe the world’s largest cookware in general. So, the professional flatbedder tasked with hauling the skillet was trusted with some seriously precious cargo.
Lodge has said it will release more information about how the pan was made in the coming weeks, ahead of the museum opening. Kooser reported that it involved a foundry in Alabama that specializes in large cast iron pieces.
