"a well-stocked pantry – a grand word for some precariously stacked shelves and rodent-proof storage boxes." Felicity Cloake
It was Felicity Cloake's turn to edit the weekly Guardian newsletter this week and she chose to introduce it with a piece on her overstocked pantry and a vow to have a 'no spend January'. The 'no spend' part, in her case being nothing more for the pantry. Maybe I should consider doing the same.
Anyway it was an ideal prompt to get me back to my occasional pieces on the elements that make up my kitchen. So here it is - my pantry - with a ghostly me trying to take a reasonable photgraph of it. You can just see the fridge/freezer behind me - the other pantry in the kitchen which also needs a blitz. Indeed in my head I am thinking of doing a freezer blitz next week by just feeding us on things that have been lurking there far too long. Today, however it's the pantry - situated at the entry to the kitchen on one side of my kitchen bench.
The pantry was constructed from a bench in our old laundry, on which I used to sew my clothes. I don't do that anymore. There were shelves above it on which were stored various laundry-use things. To those original shelves we have added the side shelves, and a couple of extra shelves - one above and one below the bench. The small strip light was originally intended to light the sewing area. It gives a little bit of extra light to the pantry but not enough really. It's very easy to hide things in corners especially, and a little bit behind things. The trick is to keep your shelves shallow however, as then you can more or less see what you have. The overall shape and design of my pantries has fundamentally been the same since our first Australian house because our first home builder - Merchant Builders - designed their pantries like that. Deep shelves are useless.
But when I think about and dredge through childhood/youth memories, I seem to remember that the stone pantry in my mother's kitchen had a similar shelf structure. I seem to remember that you could walk into it a little way. Hers, however, being made of stone, was more an extension of the tiny fridge - a cool store. The things you see in my pantry were more likely in overhead cupboards. Moreover she would not have had such a large number of things, partly because of thrift and conservative cooking, but also partly because you simply could not buy such a huge range of things as you can do now.
Although I say it myself, and although it probably doesn't look like it, my pantry is relatively well-organised, with the same kinds of things - pulses, jams, things in bottles, sugars, spices, nuts ... all clustered together. And I do sort of know what is lurking in the corners, although I may indeed choose to ignore them. For example I still have two bottles of raspberry vinegar in the corner of my bottle section. I focussed on these in a blog post years ago but I still have done nothing with them. And I think this is because they are deliberately out of sight, and therefore out of mind. What I should do is take one of them out and put it on my work bench in front of my eyes. (Done!) But you know I also have put there a jar of leftovever pickling juice, and a bottle of tarragon vinegar - they have still not been used. Although. The jar of pickling juice did actually have some pickled onions in them and, in fact, because they were there in plain sight I did use them up. And I have used a bit of the tarragon vinegar too. So maybe I should add the raspberry vinegar to the mid bench collection.
And when I went to take the above picture I also found that grapeseed oil which must be at least a decade - maybe two old. Now that must surely have gone off. Dare I use it? Well having just read answers to that question. The answer is really no. Though I have to say it looks alright. I should smell/taste it to see I think. And that bottle demonstrates the problem of the ingredient you buy for that one dish and never use again. Why didn't I? I mean I could have sloshed it into anything. Very black mark Rosemary. The vinegar however, although well past its best, will probably be OK to put in some kind of marinade, pickle or chutney.
Here we are down at ground level where onions and potatoes are stored at the back in baskets, large empty jars, waiting for use, bottles of soda water and beer, large cans of olive oil, rice in what is really a dustbin, and plastic bags. On the shelf above are stored the increasing number of different sugars that seem to be required these days - well sugar never goes off - and our home-made jam and marmalade supply - that does indeed get used. And yes I've kept the step I bought for my toddler grandchildren who are now giants, because I myself have some shelves and cupboards that I cannot reach. Oh to be tall.
I do try to keep things in glass jars - back in the day I drank instant coffee and kept the jars which were amazingly useful for storing things - the yellow topped ones. Once a packet of anything is opened it goes into a glass jar.
That spice rack on the back of the door has followed us around from house to house and pantry to pantry. There was another one as well but for some reason that got discarded, or maybe David purloined it for his tool shed. I also have rows of small jars of herbs and spices, some of which really should be thrown out, although I do vaguely remember weeding them some time ago. What was the bench used to be relatively clear but is gradually filling up with large bags of coffee beans, and large bags of fancy pasta. My tinned collection is relatively small - tomatoes, baked beans, beans of other kinds, and tinned fish, but the sauce bottle collection is growing. Damn that Ottolenghi guy.
I see I haven't really shown my collection of nuts and pulses on the opposite side, and some of them really should be used.
The top shelf - oh dear. Jars and jars of chutneys and pickles, David's triumphant find of Robertson's fruit mince, waiting for next Christmas - yes it will keep that long - or some tempting dessert recipe - Nigel and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall have some good ideas there. I think there's a large jar of cocoa up there as well, and all of our daily vitamins - a David thing. Does cocoa go off? Should I start drinking cocoa before bed as I did as a child?
As for the legumes - You can see the very large jar of chickpeas. I bought them very recently for something, but they only came in huge bags, and so I now have masses. I really should do something with them. And that gifted bag of Moroccan couscous. It may even be a 2023 gift. Next time we have couscous - not as often as we should, I shall use it.
I definitely have too much in there anyway - and I haven't even mentioned my overflow drawers - another time. I remember not being at all phased by COVID lockdown and empty supermarket shelves. I remember thinking we could survive for a few months on what I had in my pantry and the freezer. And I would improvise with what was available in the fruit and veg aisles. It might have been a tiny bit more limited diet, but not much. Maybe I have too big a pantry. Maybe if it was smaller I would not be so wasteful. For some of those things will definitely be thrown out eventually. Maybe not the grapeseed oil however. I just sniffed it and it smells perfectly OK.
So thank you Felicity for getting me back on track on my kitchen tour, and also for inspiring me to also try a no spend month. Well at least a no spend on pantry items - unless it's something crucial like flour. She maintains she has had fun:
"Above all, I’ve been free-styling, be that adding a shower of crisp shallots or chopped nuts, a drizzle of chilli oil, a spoonful of sun-dried tomatoes or sauerkraut to salads, soups and sandwiches (or tortillas, in my case). For the most part, the extra flavour or texture has worked well. In fact, cooking like this has actually been fun."
And there are plenty of books and blogs on what to do with this kind of stuff. Ottolenghi and Jamie wrote whole books on the topic during COVID - as did others. They were just the most obvious. But rather than make it a month's project, maybe I should just shake myself up and do it all the time. Ingredient by ingredient. Take one out and put it on the bench where I can see it and use it until it's gone. Then make a decision as to whether it's something I have been missing in my cooking life or something I never want to eat again.
“Don’t go for the first thing you think of. Do something unexpected, because it’s likely to be more fun.”
says Felicity - but shouldn't we be doing that all of the time anyway?
Now dare I do my overflow drawers next time?
THE LETTER I
I walked again today - we are enjoying a cool spell, and looked out for things beginning with I but saw nothing. I thought of insects, and islands but could not think of anything else and saw neither.
But here at home is Ivy - which has already strangled a few trees up in the wild corner of our garden and is now attempting to strangle others. But it's lush and green so I am rewarding it for its survival drive.
Not many foods beginning with I are there? Ice cream is all my not very bright brain today can think of. Maybe I should cook through the alphabet too. No I think that's a bit too much.
YEARS GONE BY
January 17 - I didn't quite finish January 16th's post yesterday, but did this morning.
2023 - Nothing
2021 - Gochujang and chillies
2019 - Greg and Lucy Malouf's New Feast
Yes I learnt a lot, almost a meander down memory lane. Very interesting!
😊
Very entertaining.