We’re easing into 2026 with a look back at some favorite very big things.
First up: giant pans.
In 2026, the Stuck at the Airport attractions team hopes to visit the The Lodge Museum of Cast Iron in South Pittsburg, Tennessee (south of Chattanooga) to lay eyes on what may be the World’s Largest Cast Iron Skillet.
It measures over 18 feet from handle to handle and weighs in at a whopping 14,360 pounds.
Here’s the skillet on its way to the museum around this time in 2022.
There are other notable giant pans around the country. But our favorite is giant frying pan created in the early 1940s in Long Beach, Washington.
The pan was first commissioned in 1941 for the first annual clam festival. It weighed in at 1,300 pounds and was 10 feet wide and 20 feet tall, and for many years was used to cook clam giant clam fritters.
Here’s the recipe if you’d like to try this at home:
- 200 pounds of clams
- 20 dozen eggs
- 20 pounds of flour
- 20 pounds of cracker meal
- 20 pounds of cornmeal
- 10 gallons of milk
- 13 gallons of salad oil
The pan toured the Pacific Northwest and other west coast cities to promote the Clam Festival and for many years the pan hung outside of Marsh’s Free Museum (home of Jake, the Alligator Man, and other oddities) in Long Beach.
Years later, the orginal pan was replaced with the fiberglass version that is now on display in Long Beach, WA beside a giant (squirting) razor clam.
The Long Beach Clam Festival is celebrated each April.
See you there!
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