While the Mid-Shore’s Dennis Powell has agreed (and is honored) to be one of the featured artists at the Academy Art Museum’s famed Crafts Show this coming October, he still recoils slightly at being called an artist or even a craftsman.
That’s because his product, the simple American cast iron pan, is the result of an intensive manufacturing process that involves approximately 180 workers in a Pennsylvania foundry to produce his small run of some of the most remarkable cooking skillets in the world.
It also might be due to the fact that Powell started his company as the result of trying to solve an engineering problem rather than one of aesthetics. When his grandmother’s skillet from the 19th century finally cracked in 2013, his journey began to recreate somehow an ancient process in manufacturing cast iron pans that would have a surface similar to his grandmother’s; so smooth that scallops could be sautéed without seasonings or oil.
Dennis Powell has taken several years of study, and more than a few bucks, to follow this passion. With the support of an encouraging spouse, he started a project that would eventually bring a product of near perfection to market in 2016 as Butter Pat Industries, which offers for skillet sizes for some of the best-known chefs in America as well as “in the know” home cooks.
The Spy sat down with Dennis near his Easton Airport office to talk about cast iron, engineering, and the distinctive art and craft (Sorry Dennis) that comes with pan manufacturing.
This video is approximately five minutes in length. For more information about the Academy Art Museum’s Crafts Show for 2018 please go here.
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