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a small room or closet in which food, dishes, and utensils are kept.
synonyms: larder, store, storeroom; archaicspence“we set out moth traps in the pantry”I don’t have a pantry. When we moved here in 1980 we created a big wonderful kitchen from the old awful kitchen, the pantry, and, mostly, a new addition.
Still, I like the idea of a pantry. And, often, I like making dinner from what is in the (imaginary) pantry. Tonight I made pizza margherita with tomato sauce I froze last summer, mozzarella left over from birthday pasta, and basil that I couldn’t resist at the farmers market. Plus, of course, dough made with the large bag of flour I store on my baking cart, which is almost as good as a pantry.
I made salad from greens also left over from the party (i.e. left over because I thought there was no way we could eat more than the three giant bowls of salad I served, but in fact we ran out).
It’s kind of a fun game, pantry dinners. I probably have at least a month’s worth on my shelves. But after a few days, I always want to pick something that sounds wonderful and requires me to purchase even more ingredients, often exotic herbs and spices that will be used once and then added to the list of things I feel just a little bit guilty for having.
My grandmother had a pantry. Until her last years, however, she didn’t have a refrigerator. We often visited her on Sunday afternoons and almost always accepted dinner. Luckily the county health inspectors never visited, because her storage practices would not make it today. Still, I never remember being sickened from the meals she cooked. She always had Juicy Fruit gum in the pocket of her apron for us. I remember.
I had no pantry when we moved here, and the kitchen was small, walled-off from a west-facing metal solid door, and very dark. When we remodeled, the wall went, we poked two skylights in ceiling, the laundry became the pantry, and the new door let in light. The laundry became practically inaccessible, placed in the utility room. When I swing the laundry baskets out around the boiler, sometimes I get burned on a pipe. The arrangement shows my priorities pretty well.
My pantry game? If we were snowed in for a couple of months, could we survive on what’s in the pantry? (Okay, and ‘fridge and 5 cu. ft. freezer in the garage.) Yes, we could. I think it comes from my mother’s poverty-stricken life when her father was killed when she was four. No social security then.
I don’t have a pantry. But I have half the contents of my grandma’s pantry in our kitchen and on display shelves in our house. My grandparents lived in the upstairs flat of a large home in the Washington Park neighborhood of Milwaukee. An oak swinging door separated the dining room from the kitchen. At the back of the small kitchen was a large pantry, an entire room with a full sized window that provided natural light. The bottom cabinets were filled with flour, canned goods and spices, I’m sure. But my eyes always focused on the brightly colored set of Fiestaware on the upper shelves. The pantry contained my grandma’s “everyday” set of Fiestaware, an exact duplicate of her “good” set, which was housed in the built-in glass-doored cabinets in the dining room. I inherited both sets. The dishes are a sentimental reminder of my grandma’s delicious cooking and of the many wonderful meals we enjoyed in her home with family and friends.
I never knew that your Fiestaware was inherited, or the wonderful story of your grandmother’s two sets. I don’t remember much about my grandmother’s dishes. I remember some beautiful blue asymetric Russell Wright dishes that my mother kept in a high cubpoard and never used. I remember using Corelle. Thanks for your story; now I need to talk with my sister and see what she remembers!