The kitchen and the pantry are signs of days gone by

THis

by Larry Ellis

Many houses of yesterday had a pantry off the kitchen. The kitchens were large and roomy, but the pantries were small and compact, often no more than six feet wide by eight or ten feet long, usually near and running along side the cellar stairs or in some the back stairs to the second floor. In the pantry, space was limited, and every inch used to advantage - few steps were required to prepare a batch of bread dough or stir a pitcher of pancake batter. A pantry was a mother’s paradise; pies were rolled out, put together, baked in the wood stove then quickly whisked back to the pantry to cool. A country pantry was often the “core” of family life, where mothers and daughters frosted cakes, mixed up cookies and made biscuits as they talked with each other. The pantry held not only food for the body but nourishment for the spirit. From time to time the pantry became the sanctuary where one could escape to find peace, quiet and renewed strength when life’s burdens seemed too heavy to bear. Tears and sadness were often replaced by hope and contentment when one would look upon the last year’s harvest

- row upon row of glass jars filled with pickles, jam, jelly, and other preserves that sparkled as the sun shone through the nearby window.

Not all houses had a pantry

- some had a summer kitchen or back kitchen, others a woodshed that was often attached to the kitchen, for obvious reasons - wood for the kitchen wood stove had to be handy. Many of the summer or back kitchens were unheated; the point of summer kitchen was that on warm summer days the family were away from the heat generated by the wood stove.

The design of homes today has changed much but memories of what they were like many years ago remain, good memories.

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