Cast iron and carbon steel
Two more pieces of steel cookware, in plain terms: what "seasoning" actually is, why it matters on bare cast iron, and why the enamelled paella pan already on this site is a different case entirely.
What seasoning is, and why it matters
Seasoning is a layer built up on bare cast iron or bare carbon steel by applying a thin coat of oil and heating it repeatedly; the coating polymerises into a protective, semi-non-stick surface bonded to the metal. Wikipedia's cast-iron cookware entry, summarising the general mechanism, notes plainly that "seasoning is also used to protect bare cast iron from rust" as well as to reduce sticking — without that layer (or a factory coating, see below), bare metal exposed to air and moisture will oxidise. Lodge's own cleaning-and-care guide points cooks to a "Seasoning 101" process built around rubbing the pan with oil, consistent with that general mechanism, though the guide we reached didn't spell out the full step-by-step on the page we could read.
The paella pan on this site is enamelled — it doesn't need seasoning
The Alises paella pan already covered on this site is enamelled carbon steel, not bare metal. As our pan-care guide explains, an enamel coating is a separate, factory-applied protective layer rather than a seasoning layer you build yourself — so the seasoning routine above doesn't apply to it. The Lodge skillet and the carbon steel wok below are the bare-metal case where seasoning is the relevant maintenance step instead.
Lodge Cast Iron Skillet, 10.25in
A classic bare cast iron skillet — comes pre-seasoned from the factory, and re-seasoned the same way over its life.
YOSUKATA 34cm Carbon Steel Wok, flat-bottom
A pre-seasoned, flat-bottom carbon steel wok, suited to a domestic hob as well as a wok burner.
Sources (accessed 2026-09-08): Wikipedia, "Cast-iron cookware", for the general seasoning/rust mechanism and the bare-vs-enamelled distinction; lodgecastiron.com, "Cleaning & Care", for Lodge's own reference to its "Seasoning 101" oil-based process. We tried several of Lodge's own seasoning and rust-removal pages directly and they either 404'd or didn't return the specific wording we were checking for, so this page does not repeat manufacturer claims we couldn't verify: it does not compare carbon steel and cast iron on weight, heat-up time or reactivity, and it does not characterise rust as purely cosmetic or easily restorable, because we could not confirm either claim against a reachable source this session. This page describes materials and maintenance; it makes no health, taste-superiority or "best" claims, and no prices are quoted here — see Amazon for current price and availability.