There is a reason every farmhouse and brewery kitchen we visit has at least one black cast iron skillet on the stove. It is not nostalgia. Cast iron holds heat better than almost anything else you can put on a burner, so when you drop a steak onto a preheated skillet the temperature does not collapse the way it would on stainless. That stable, screaming-hot surface is what gives you the deep crust that defines a great sear.
Caring for cast iron has been mythologized into something complicated, but it is actually shockingly simple. After you cook, wipe the pan out with a paper towel while it is still warm. If something is stuck, scrub it with a chain mail scrubber or coarse salt. Run it under water if you have to (it is fine), dry it on the burner, then wipe a thin film of oil over the inside. That is it. Do that once a year for forty years and your pan will look better than the day you bought it.
The other thing cast iron does that nothing else can: it stores time. The seasoning layer is built up from hundreds of meals you have already cooked. The wedge of cornbread you bake next Sunday will taste a tiny bit like the bacon you fried last Tuesday, which tasted a tiny bit like the steak you reverse seared in February. A cast iron pan is not a tool. It is a slow-fermenting archive of your kitchen.
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