> I don't agree with the claim that simply cooking fatty food results in a seasoned pan. I'm sorry to say that you disagree with every professional kitchen tha

> I don't agree with the claim that simply cooking fatty food results in a seasoned pan. I'm sorry to say that you disagree with every professional kitchen that uses cast iron or carbon steel cookware. Regular cooking with adequate amounts of fat is absolutely what maintains and strengthens the seasoning. The initial layer you bake/fry on is only a starter to get the pan ready for use. For carbon steel pans, it also serves to prevent it from rusting, after you remove the protective wax/lacquer that was put on it for shipping. > If you have to season from scratch, invest in some flax oil, apply VERY thinly, and bake for an hour, then cool. Repeat 5 times. You can do this, and it results in a very pretty deep dark golden coating that would look great on a display piece. Unfortunately the resulting coating is brittle and doesn't bind very well to the surface, so it's fragile and will flake off. It's more of a lacquer coating than an actual polymerization of fat molecules onto the iron. To be clear, I tried this exactly as the common advice tells you to: by meticulously cleaning and drying the pan, then wiping on a super-thin almost dry layer of oil, then heating in the oven, then repeating several times. The coating was very pretty, but it was no match for the normal method I use, which is the one recommended by Matfer Bourgeat and De Buyer for their carbon steel pans. Just clean the pan well, then fry up a batch of potato peels in plenty of oil and salt, until the peels are very dark. Clean out the pan and start using it. It will get better and better the more you use it. That's all there is to it, and it's so much quicker than repeated applications of flaxseed oil and baking cycles.