Field Company

The company was started by two brothers, Stephen & Chris Muscarella, who named the company after their maternal grandmother—and it was from that side of the family that they inherited a number of vintage cast iron pans from the 1930s.

Those vintage pans were some of the only prized possessions that made it through many moves and kitchens. Both brothers acquired some new cast iron cookware and didn’t use it as much. It wasn’t as nice, it didn’t have the same weight or hand feel. A question was born - why don’t they make them like they used to?

Initially, the Field Company was never meant to be a company.

We started by wanting to understand all the secrets of cast iron. We love all the lore, but wanted real answers. We didn’t know if we would make fifty pans in a barn for friends and family or if we would end up creating a larger scale operation.

We started by taking one of our favorite vintage cast iron pans, a beautiful Wagner from the 1930s, and going to visit some foundries. We were told that there was no way that a modern foundry could pour iron that thin. Not willing to accept that answer, we stumbled on a whitepaper called Thermophysical Properties of Thin Walled Compacted Graphite Iron Castings written by a material science professor in Europe. We emailed him and he agreed to Skype with us. He was eager to help and more than a little amused. With his help, we were able to perform microscopic imaging to compare the graphite structure of vintage pans and make sure they weren’t black magic. Eventually, we visited his lab to learn to make iron castings by hand—the way our favorite pans had been made over a hundred years ago.

While learning to pour iron by hand, we got obsessive about restoring and refurbishing vintage pans. We wanted to season smooth pans from scratch and compare them to modern machined pans. We stripped pans with many different techniques—old-fashioned sanding, self-cleaning oven cycles, throwing them in fire (not recommended)—with the ultimate and best solution being an electrolysis tank. We also learned that certain kinds of smooth surfaces never build up good seasoning and achieving cast iron perfection.

We are proud of the Field Skillet—great tools are rare. But we are just as proud to support our customers and make sure they get the most out of their cast iron.