what about enamaled pans?

i don’t like the thought that i will be spending more time with my pans outside of cooking then cleaning the regular ones. and i don’t want to manage my pans intake like its a diabetic that can’t handle tomato based foods.

I think that it is a joy to cook with my cast iron pans, but there is a number of caveats that other repliers already mentioned.

One of the points that I did not read yet, is that if you have really acidic foods, your cast iron seasoning will wear out fast. For those use cases, I stick (hehe) with ceramic pans.

I love my cast irons, I have a carbon steel one, that is even more work to care for, but gets really hot and is great for searing. I would like a stainless one for more of a nonstick option though.

Better at what? Most certainly better at splitting someone's skull open if they're in your home without an invitation. Hands down.

I agree with the wife. Cast iron for steaks and searing red meats, non-stick for everything else.

At the end of the day, what you should care about most is the fact that you're lucky enough to have a wife who knows how to cook. In my house, I have to handle all the cooking and dishes. But at least she does the dusting and the laundry—both of which I hate doing—so it evens out I guess.

Non stick usually implies teflon coating. Throw it out.

I have some cast iron cookware. Fun to use, the end result does feel different, heat disperses well and evenly and keeps warm for longer.

It can be used over nearly any heat source, with similar results, but I do prefer induction. More efficient and less prone no mishaps.

I like carbon steel, mainly for two reasons

1. Heats up insanely fast
2. Super easy to clean

This is not religion. If you don't belong to my exact sect of christianity you are going to hell. However if you use a differet pan than me or even have a mix there is nothing wrong with it. So get and have a mix and learn what each does well / poorly.

i won't fry an egg on anything other than non-stick. I won't sear a steak in that, or my stainless (my stove takes too long to get my thick stainless to temperature - ymmv with different pans or a better stove), so cast iron it is. Most of my cooking is in cast iron because it is cheap and versital, but I use my stainless often enough that I'm keeping them.

It's a tool. Like a hammer.

Hammer hit nail, nail go in. But if you look for hammers you'll quickly find that there's a dozen or so different hammers available, all of which make nail go in.

Different hammers are for different types of hitting things.

Different cooking pans are for different types of cooking. All of them make food go hot.

Stainless steel make food go hot and also make pan sauce and clean real easy. But food sometimes stick. This is considered a feature, not a flaw.

Non stick make food go hot but food no stick. Doesn't last very long but it's very easy to clean. If you really love eggs they're a necessity.

Cast iron make food go hot and stay hot longer. But they don't heat very evenly and they're hard to clean, this is also considered a feature by... Certain people...

For some reason there's a community of gooners for cast iron. I cook a lot and have long since abandoned 99% of my cast iron cookware. The only things that survived was a burger press and a Dutch oven that has a ceramic glaze on it so it's easy to keep clean. I find that for just make food go hot, cast iron is not as good at it as stainless steel is. But if I'm making a stew, or bread, or frying something, a really big cast iron vessel really is the best thing. It stays at a temperature longer than anything else does, and that matters in specific applications.

A good quality stainless set is far superior imho, you can actually keep it clean and dont have to mess around with seasoning it. Also, if you drop it, it won't break your foot and/or flooring. Cast iron is a fad that frankly is already dying out.

No. It’s more versatile than most pans, but that starts and ends with “you can put it in the oven”.

The cast iron cult is just as other weird subculture that developed from people who are online too much. They’re pans. They’re fine.

Go with a carbon steel pan over cast iron. Similar performance but without the weight.

No.