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The demise of the pantry


lperry

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I moved in to a new apartment about six weeks ago, and last night was the first time that I genuinely enjoyed cooking in the kitchen. The problem was not a broken appliance or renovation dust, but lack of organization of all my staple foods. Despite the fact that the building was completed only two years ago, this kitchen has a relatively small amount of cabinet space and *no* pantry.

I noticed the lack of pantry problem in just about every place I looked prior to moving, and I spoke about it with my realtor. Apparently, people eat out so much now that they want that space for other things. I remedied the issue here by purchasing a large, wood, "armoire" on Craigslist. It was organized and full prior to my cooking binge last night. Unfortunately, I still have several boxes of food to put away, so I'll need more space before I am really set.

Do you have a nice pantry space? If not, what do you use? How well does it work for you?

-L

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Do you have a nice pantry space?

Actually, I do, but I have the incredible luck to live in a big house in the middle of the woods in New Hampshire, the result of the pooling of four people's incomes and an inheritance. We have a nice, semi-well-organized pantry which also has space for the bulk of the house "culinary library" (approx. 150 books). Our previous house didn't have one, we just had cabinets which weren't as well organized (I got to set up the current kitchen, I had no hand in the previous one). good amount of shelving, plus overhead beams to hang baskets and mesh bags of potatoes and onions.

Dante

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We're in a small sixties-vintage ranch house with a good-sized kitchen for its overall size. The kitchen was my highest priority when we were house-hunting, and this one was bigger than anything else we looked at in our price range, with lots of cabinet space, relatively speaking--but it's nowhere big enough for all my stuff! The previous owners put shelves in what used to be the broom closet, so that serves as a pantry now. But the kitchen table is usually stacked with nonperishibles that we don't have room to put away; the liquor cabinet has overflowed onto the countertop; I'm keeping the preserves and pickles I've canned in the spare bedroom; my muffin tins and odd-sized cake pans are piled on my desk; and the infrequently-used appliances (deep fryer, bread machine, wok, etc.), canning supplies, and serving pieces are inconveniently stored in the garage.

We've started talking about building a custom home next time around, and I've been with looking at plans with a nice big walk-in pantry. I think that's going to be a requirement, no matter where else we have to cut back!

MaryMc

Seattle, WA

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We're in a small sixties-vintage ranch house with a good-sized kitchen for its overall size.  The kitchen was my highest priority when we were house-hunting, and this one was bigger than anything else we looked at in our price range, with lots of cabinet space, relatively speaking--but it's nowhere big enough for all my stuff! 

We've started talking about building a custom home next time around, and I've been with looking at plans with a nice big walk-in pantry.  I think that's going to be a requirement, no matter where else we have to cut back!

A walk-in would be nice but in the meantime you might consider what I did. We too are in an older ranch home with a fairly large kitchen space. Normal top and counter cabinets on three walls but no real pantry. We have a tiny scullery with the washer/dryer off the kitchen however and I put a floor to ceiling bookcase in there. Then I built two more bookcases of the same height but 1/2 the width, and about 6 inches deep. I attached these with long piano hinges to the bookcase as doors, effectively almost doubling the shelf space. I put a heavy-duty swivelling ball caster under these doors to prevent sagging and firmly attached the bookcase to the wall to avoid any possibility of tipping.

I would post photos but I don't know how!!

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A walk-in would be nice but in the meantime you might consider what I did.  We too are in an older ranch home with a fairly large kitchen space. Normal top and counter cabinets on three walls but no real pantry. We have a tiny scullery with the washer/dryer off the kitchen however and I put a floor to ceiling bookcase in there. Then I built two more bookcases of the same height but 1/2 the width, and about 6 inches deep. I attached these with long piano hinges to the bookcase as doors, effectively almost doubling the shelf space. I put a heavy-duty swivelling ball caster under these doors to prevent sagging and firmly attached the bookcase to the wall to avoid any possibility of tipping.

I would post photos but I don't know how!!

There's no place to put any more shelves where we are now, but this idea is going right in my file of things to do when I'm planning my next kitchen. Thanks!!

MaryMc

Seattle, WA

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Unfortunately, I rent, so I am stuck with free-standing furniture solutions. Or lack of solutions as the case may be. Someday I'll have a real pantry (cue theme from Gone With the Wind)...

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I think the demise of the pantry has a lot to do with the better availability of fresh food year-round. Most people, especially in apartments and small-lot suburban homes, just go to the supermarket once or twice a week to get whatever they need for consumption over the course of the next week. They're not putting up preserves, storing potatoes or buying half a cow for the chest freezer. When I think about the kind of stuff we had in our pantry in our country house in the 1970s, it's all stuff I'd never bother to keep around today: powdered milk, dozens of jars of preserves and cans and cans and cans of stuff. So the only people who really want pantries are hardcore advanced cooks who do crazy things like buy 50lb bags of flour and join the eGullet Society.

Steven A. Shaw aka "Fat Guy"
Co-founder, Society for Culinary Arts & Letters, sshaw@egstaff.org
Proud signatory to the eG Ethics code
Director, New Media Studies, International Culinary Center (take my food-blogging course)

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The house my wife and I just bought has a decent kitchen, but with no pantry space. We put in a large vegetable garden (herbs, tomato, cauliflower, tomatillo, peppers, zucchini, cucumbers) and live about a 10-minute walk to the huge weekly farmer's market, so fresh produce is no problem. Therefore, one solution to the lack of a pantry, although unconventional, is that we use part of the refrigerator to store stuff that really doesn't need to be refrigerated. Canned goods, bulk cous cous, anything in a jar - opened or not, vinegars, etc. Since we don't shop for two weeks, or even a week, at a time, we can get away with it. If we couldn't it wopuld be tough because there is literally nowhere else we could put shelving, etc.

"A culture's appetite always springs from its poor" - John Thorne

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Even though people aren't putting up veggies for the winter or buying 50 lb. bags of flour, people ARE shopping at warehouse stores like Costco and buying huge packs of chips, cases of things like soup or other family favorites, giant boxes of cereal and dog food and the like. Where do most people store these things without pantries?

I designed a small pantry into our new kitchen, with rollout shelves above and drawers below. The kitchen's too small for a walk-in, and I couldn't increase the size of the space. Luckily for us, it's just the two of us, so we don't need the sheer quantity that you'd need for a large (or even small) family.

My grandmother's early 60's ranch house (admittedly custom designed) had a great walk-in pantry that I loved. She was tiny, and had one of those kik-step stools that wheeled around until you put your weight on it, then stayed put, and she had all manner of fantastic things in there!

"I just hate health food"--Julia Child

Jennifer Garner

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Even though people aren't putting up veggies for the winter or buying 50 lb. bags of flour, people ARE shopping at warehouse stores like Costco and buying huge packs of chips, cases of things like soup or other family favorites, giant boxes of cereal and dog food and the like. Where do most people store these things without pantries?

I don't think apartment dwellers tend to shop that way (the ones who do have larger apartments than normal, or they have storage space in their buildings' basements), and people who live in suburban homes tend to have basements. I have several friends who have a row of Metro shelves (or the equivalent) somewhere in the basement where they keep all the bulk paper towels, toilet paper, canned tomatoes, laundry detergent, dog food, etc.

Don't get me wrong, if I built a house it would of course have a pantry. But were I building a house designed to appeal to the average person, I wouldn't allocate 60 square feet to a pantry when I could put another bathroom there or make the living room or kitchen bigger.

Steven A. Shaw aka "Fat Guy"
Co-founder, Society for Culinary Arts & Letters, sshaw@egstaff.org
Proud signatory to the eG Ethics code
Director, New Media Studies, International Culinary Center (take my food-blogging course)

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I build a 7' x 13 Pantry into my new house. It is great but tends to need culling of " stuff " every so often or you can not find any thing. Of course most people are more organized than me.

I have a friend who is building his new house with a pantry that will be refrigerated to 55-60 degrees. and a walk in reefer in addition. Now it looks like I have to build a new house. Dang him.

Robert

Seattle

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Ah, memories of my Aunt Martha's pantry in her very old house on Long Island. The pantry was not just extra storage place but it was unheated, so things like onions and potatoes would keep well there.

You'd think with today's mega kitchens where people install things they really don't need, like those over-stove faucets (you still have to lug the big pot full of water to the sink to drain it), the old-fashioned pantry would be high on the list of want-to-haves.

Another storage device lost to modern humanity is the root cellar. Oops, sorry, going too far back in time, now.

*****

"Did you see what Julia Child did to that chicken?" ... Howard Borden on "Bob Newhart"

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Wait, where are all these homes with basements? I didn't think homes were built that way anymore -- at least they aren't out on the west coast, or my part of it. I even own an "older" (that is, built in 1946, still with the original tiny square of a kitchen) home and there's very little built-in storage. We went as far as removing the water heater in the laundry area and installing a tankless version in order to reclaim enough space in a corner for a tall, narrow bookcase that has become our "pantry." We even got rid of the microwave in order to keep all possible counter and storage space. When I last lived in an apartment, I had to shop in pretty small quantities then too, but the kitchen was twice as big and had its own pantry. I would love a real pantry so that the pots and all the appliances could be put away.

Edited by plk (log)
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So the only people who really want pantries are hardcore advanced cooks who do crazy things like buy 50lb bags of flour and join the eGullet Society.

I am the woman who has refused to sell out and is instead rehabbing a ridiculously old-fashioned 1887 four-square on a block with 7, yes 7, new McMansions built within the last three years where other old houses used to stand. But I have two huge pantries, one on the now enclosed former back porch next to the kitchen and one in the basement next to the chest freezer. I don't know that I'm an advanced cook, but crazy and hardcore? You bet.

"It is a fact that he once made a tray of spanakopita using Pam rather than melted butter. Still, though, at least he tries." -- David Sedaris
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I would love a real pantry so that the pots and all the appliances could be put away.

Exactly. I can put away the cookware and have no place for the food, or I can put away the food and have no place for the cookware.

One of my friends lives in a house built in the mid-fifties. No pantry. It does have a basement, however, and she put shelving against the wall all the way down the staircase for her pantry. Because the door is just off the kitchen it's fairly convenient too.

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a walk in reefer in addition

Gee, I wish I had a walk in reefer... :biggrin:

In Japan, homes don't have space for a pantry, but many homes and apartments have a wee bit of space under the floor for storage of, I think, tsukemono and the like. In my 4-apartment building, only the 1st floor apartments have that space, so I was out of luck. If I did have it, I'd use it as as teeny tiny pantry (and would probably forget about whatever was in it).

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One thing I've noticed about pantries is that, while some people make great use of them, most people just let a lot of junk accumulate -- junk they don't need, never use and eventually discard. I guess it depends on how rigorous and organized someone is, but I know for sure that most people don't benefit from more kitchen storage space. They may love it, but the benefits are illusory. Having less space -- not zero space, but a reasonable amount -- helps limit accumulation and waste, not just of food but also of equipment, paper goods, cleaning products, etc.

In addition to 1- better availability of fresh foods, and 2- more meals eaten out or based on prepared products, another factor in the demise of the pantry is 3- families getting smaller. When you have three or four kids, a pantry becomes essential because you need to stock your home like a restaurant. When you have one kid, or none, you don't need that kind of inventory unless you're all the way at the end of the bell curve in terms of how much you entertain and the level at which you operate in the kitchen.

Steven A. Shaw aka "Fat Guy"
Co-founder, Society for Culinary Arts & Letters, sshaw@egstaff.org
Proud signatory to the eG Ethics code
Director, New Media Studies, International Culinary Center (take my food-blogging course)

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Another storage device lost to modern humanity is the root cellar.  Oops, sorry, going too far back in time, now.

I remember my father's excitement when we had a 60's tract ranch house built and he discovered the front porch (20 feet by 5 feet) had poured cement walls all the way down to the foundation of the basement. The first thing he did when we moved into that house was to punch a door through the basement wall into the porch. Such fun when you're 10 years old and someone is playing with a jack hammer in your basement!

When the dust settled, he fabricated a wood and styrofoam door, punched two holes near the top of the porch walls for ventilation and used styrofoam blocks in the ventilation holes to regulate the temperature. He created the perfect temperature regulated root and wine cellar.

After we moved out, we went back to visit a few years later and found the new owners were using the space as "attic" space. Such a waste!

My current solution to no pantry is a basement area lined with shelves. Food and cooking equipment makes its home there.

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Do you have a nice pantry space?

Actually, I do, but I have the incredible luck to live in a big house in the middle of the woods in New Hampshire, the result of the pooling of four people's incomes and an inheritance.  We have a nice, semi-well-organized pantry which also has space for the bulk of the house "culinary library"  (approx. 150 books).  Our previous house didn't have one, we just had cabinets which weren't as well organized (I got to set up the current kitchen, I had no hand in the previous one).  good amount of shelving, plus overhead beams to hang baskets and mesh bags of potatoes and onions.

                                                                                  Dante

Hi Dante--I'd like to nominate you for a food blog. Your living situation sounds cool.

I think the demise of the pantry has a lot to do with the better availability of fresh food year-round. Most people, especially in apartments and small-lot suburban homes, just go to the supermarket once or twice a week to get whatever they need for consumption over the course of the next week. They're not putting up preserves, storing potatoes or buying half a cow for the chest freezer. When I think about the kind of stuff we had in our pantry in our country house in the 1970s, it's all stuff I'd never bother to keep around today: powdered milk, dozens of jars of preserves and cans and cans and cans of stuff. So the only people who really want pantries are hardcore advanced cooks who do crazy things like buy 50lb bags of flour and join the eGullet Society.

Yeah, yeah, it's the one-of-each Asian noodle collections, the array of dried spices for a dozen different ethnic cuisines, the United Nations of hot sauces, the canned foods from all countries that fill pantries nowadays. I know that's what eventually filled my Chicago apartment pantry when I lived there over the course of five years or so.

That was one great pantry. It had three big built-in drawers and shelves deep enough to accommodate big bins, stockpots, and a lazy susan for all those little bottles and jars. The fridge lived there, too. (There was also a linen closet in the hallway and a built-in glass-front breakfront in the dining room. Fabulous 20s-era apartment in Rogers Park. I think the landlord trashed I mean modernized by removing all that period detail--storage space--when we moved out.)

Margo Thompson

Allentown, PA

You're my little potato, you're my little potato,

You're my little potato, they dug you up!

You come from underground!

-Malcolm Dalglish

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My "pantry" is just an extra deep floor to ceiling cabinet at the end of one of the counters, in which I've installed pull-out drawers so I can reach what's in back. I don't have a family to cook for, and I don't buy at Costco, but I do manage to fill it. Four or five vinegars and several oils; soy sauce and other Asian condiments; flour and several kinds of sugar; three turntables of spices; pasta, lentils, bulgar and a couple of kinds of rice; a few canned goods like tuna and tomatoes.

I do shop pretty much every day, for perishables, but if I didn't have room for the pantry ingredients, it would be a lot more time consuming. And it's nice to know that if I don't have time or the inclination to shop, I can almost always come up with something edible from what's in the pantry.

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I've noticed quite a significant fraction of my pantry is devoted to ethnic ingredients. I suspect that if I limited myself to one cuisine, I could cut down the pantry significantly. But where's the fun in that?

I think you have nailed down the reason that eG Society Members need so much kitchen storage! It's that we mess about with cuisines from all over the world necessitating not just extra space for ingredients but for cooking utensils too! Come on now we gotta have a wok and a tagine and some casuelas and an assortment of clay pots and . . . . . . . . . . .(I have only just begun!)

No wonder we don't have space to put everything.

Anna Nielsen aka "Anna N"

...I just let people know about something I made for supper that they might enjoy, too. That's all it is. (Nigel Slater)

"Cooking is about doing the best with what you have . . . and succeeding." John Thorne

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I think you have nailed down the reason that eG Society Members need so much kitchen storage!  It's that we mess about with cuisines from all over the world necessitating not just extra space for ingredients but for cooking utensils too!  Come on now we gotta have a wok and a tagine and some casuelas and an assortment of clay pots and . . . . . . . . . . .(I have only just begun!)

No wonder we don't have space to put everything.

I needed a full cubic foot for the dried chiles alone. :smile:

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No pantry, no basement, no attic, get this, no closets. Aaah the joy of a converted summer house. I currently have 4 cases of soda in my car trunk, the dog food and paper goods in the garage, and tomorrow the soda will be joined by a case of canned tomatoes that are now on sale.

not 50lb bags of flour its 3 different 20lb bags of Rice that is the problem

tracey

The great thing about barbeque is that when you get hungry 3 hours later....you can lick your fingers

Maxine

Avoid cutting yourself while slicing vegetables by getting someone else to hold them while you chop away.

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One thing I've noticed about pantries is that, while some people make great use of them, most people just let a lot of junk accumulate -- junk they don't need, never use and eventually discard. I guess it depends on how rigorous and organized someone is, but I know for sure that most people don't benefit from more kitchen storage space. They may love it, but the benefits are illusory. Having less space -- not zero space, but a reasonable amount -- helps limit accumulation and waste, not just of food but also of equipment, paper goods, cleaning products, etc.

In addition to 1- better availability of fresh foods, and 2- more meals eaten out or based on prepared products, another factor in the demise of the pantry is 3- families getting smaller. When you have three or four kids, a pantry becomes essential because you need to stock your home like a restaurant. When you have one kid, or none, you don't need that kind of inventory unless you're all the way at the end of the bell curve in terms of how much you entertain and the level at which you operate in the kitchen.

Well, I agree with all of that, but...

I live in a huge apartment with more closets than I could ever have imagined, and I've taken the hallway closet that's right outside my kitchen entranceway (presumably it was a coat closet, but I have tons more on the other side), and turned it into a pantry. It's a good 5' x 5', and I've filled it with adjustable shelves floor to ceiling, and it holds tons.

The point of this was that I find that there are non-perishable ingredients that I like that only come from certain places, and late in life I caught the brains to stock-up on these things (a brand of pasta from one store, a sherry vinegar from another) when I shop, and my pantry holds all that stuff. And because I made the highest shelf really tall, it holds things like blenders and extra food processors. So for me the inventory saves me a lot of running around. And truth be told, I keep a few sets of dinnerware in there as well.

Overheard at the Zabar’s prepared food counter in the 1970’s:

Woman (noticing a large bowl of cut fruit): “How much is the fruit salad?”

Counterman: “Three-ninety-eight a pound.”

Woman (incredulous, and loud): “THREE-NINETY EIGHT A POUND ????”

Counterman: “Who’s going to sit and cut fruit all day, lady… YOU?”

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