The Olden Days - storing food in a pantry

Frances144

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Dec 21, 2011
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My Grandmothers both had pantries.

Everything was put in there. Mint sauce, ketchup, redcurrant jelly, jam, soy sauce, etc lived in the pantry.

Now they all want to live in the fridge.

I am having to downsize the fridge we have as they just don't make what I want anymore and will have to have a smaller fridge area so some of the jamjars that say "store in the fridge" will be out in a cold pantry instead.

This won't kill me, will it? It didn't kill us as kids!

Ok, food like mayonnaise can live in the fridge but curry sauce (just the basic base stuff) can live outwith the fridge now.

Do you think food manufacturers really mean refridgerate or they are heading onto the cautious side of things?

Our house is fairly freezing anyway.

Such a ruddy minefield.
 
Do remember the jam was in the larder when I was young ( now that is a long time ago :biggrin: ), though must add that if it grew a green coat on top mother used to just remove the top & use the rest . Loads of things these days seem to be fridge after opening,not sure why though .
 
I'm not a grandmother, but I've got a pantry, and I keep a lot of stuff in there. Jam just lives on a shelf in the kitchen, certainly not the fridge - but then it's probably home-made jam anyway.

I think "keep refrigerated" on jam is like when they say "hand wash at 30" - they're just covering themselves so you don't try and sue them when the jam goes mouldy or the jumper shrinks. Just use common sense.
 
I think it is an over cautious thing by the manufacturers - who can blame them in this litigation prone society.

I can remember my mother's pantry when we were children. It was a fair sized room off the main kitchen with many shelves and a huge table in the middle with a marble top. It always smelt of fresh apples, flour and newly baked bread. The combination was heady and comforting.

I can still close my eyes now and I am back there.......young, carefree and well fed.......sigh......:redface:

And almost everything was stored in there - including fresh and cooked meat that was in a meat safe on the big shelf. I cant recall any of us suffering from food poisoning or any sort of tummy upset - but then these days we are brain washed into ultra cleanliness with everything, so much so we no longer have any decent antibodies to protect ourselves with do we?

I'd chuck away half my fridge space for a decent old fashioned larder any day.:biggrin:
 
I think "keep refrigerated" on jam is like when they say "hand wash at 30" - they're just covering themselves so you don't try and sue them when the jam goes mouldy or the jumper shrinks. Just use common sense.

Absolutely. My mother wouldn't have been without her larder (when the kitchen was redone she insisted the larder got bigger, not smaller) and everything lived in it: jam opened or not, chutney and ketchup, the ham, the fruit and veggies... Dairy and meat in the fridge and not much else.

Lovely. I wish I had one.
 
I would kill for a good old fashioned pantry, my friend's parents had a walk in one in their house (old old house) it was a treasure trove! (Ok, she's a home economist and general food expert, Just Roll Janet is based on her!) I'm hoping that we can do similar in New House as our back door is next to some of the cupboards (there is a constant battle between OH and I regarding the home of Tomato Ketchup... it's a cupboard food!)
 
Haha! A good ol'pantry... To be quite honest, my parents have one in their house and when I moved out with my OH I found it confusing knowing what to put in the fridge/what to leave out etc!! It's like I had to learn a new skill... :redface:

I agree with everyone else who said it's just manufacturers being careful -- Hell! We live in a world where you perform CPR as a life or death maneuver, to stop a person dieing and end up with a law suit for breaking their rib!!
 
I grow fed up of this current culture, where you have to be 'hygienically' clean - ALL GERMS KILLED so to speak.. How are people supposed to build up an immunity to coughs and colds etc, when they're no longer exposed to them?
This is why all these new strains are having such an impact on the young and old, because the basic protections against them have been stripped, washed away religiously every hour, in Bacteriol hand wash etc..
These super bugs will one day create another black death, billions will die, and the anti germ bubble will burst..

Off my soap box now lol!

I do seem to remember jam being kept outside a fridge, and I also remember scrapping the mould off, even bread (we used to make bread and butter pudding with 'off bread'), these sort of things help keep our immune system ticking over..
 
I actually have a pantry ... but keep loads of household crap in it instead of food :redface: :redcarded: .... I`m a funny bugger and EVERYTHING has to live in the fridge ... Had a funny tummy a couple of times, and now i`m overly careful with everything.
 
Oh, I get so fed up with people being so anal about food!

Is the whole point of jam not that is is a fruit preserve? It's a preservative, why would you need to refridgerate it?! Ours lives in the cupboard, I don't recall it ever being mouldy, but if it was I would just scrape it off!

I don't really agree with 'use by dates' and 'best befores' either - look at it, smell it, touch it - is it off? No? Then eat it!!!!

I have a pretty sturdy stomach, though that is probably due to not being overly 'fussy' with my food.
 
Our employer has a pantry..... ironically her "spare" fridge is also out there too! :giggle: The pantry is a proper room, but then the name of her home ends with the word "Hall" so you'd expect some grandeur, wouldn't you? I love going into the pantry and just looking at all the stuff she has out there.... it's like a continental delicatessen with various foreign pasta shapes and things like black spaghetti.... not your average Heinz baked beans lady!!!
 
I've got a proper pantry, north facing with an air brick with a fly screen and everything, its even cool in the summer. Its my favourite thing about the house TBH.

I think if a food has got loads of salt/sugar/salt in it, its a preserve and can be kept in the larder. That would include all jam, pickles and sauces.

I have a method of testing things if I think its dodgy,Phase 1 look at it, if it looks ok thats a good start. Phase 2 smell it, if it smells ok it is probably ok to move to phase 3, Phase 3 taste a bit, if it tastes ok it probably is.

If still unsure, probably best not to give it to guests.

I agree with my old Nan that sell by dates were invented not to protect but to force people to spend money, even salt has a best before date and its millions of years old!
 
I've got a proper pantry, north facing with an air brick with a fly screen and everything, its even cool in the summer

A friend has just re built an old house and asked her builder to do just that.....and build a larder round it......he thought she was mad! I had a larder in my old house, it was great.....
 
I have only very recently been putting Ketchup and Jams in the Fridge tbh, before that they lived in the cupboard.

I rarely do a 'weekly shop' and tend to shop for the next few days other than the basics as I really like to eat what we fancy at the time rather than planning for the whole week, although I always have stuff in the freezer anyway.
 
I have a larder, north facing, air brick and very cold.. I took the door off though when we changed the kitchen round and bought a fridge to sit in it!!!

There is no where else for the fridge though the kitchen is tiny, the previous resident had a fridge in the dining room!

But all my sauces and jams are in my cupboard I'm afraid, most of them are out of date and still been eaten too!

Sell by dates really bug me! My sister works in catering and is completely obsessed with putting everything in fridges and not eating things past their sell by dates, she says it is because she has to be so careful at work that it comes home with her and yes the 2 day out of date chicken got a good sniff before I cooked it but the brown sauce dated 2010 is fine!!!
 
Where your fridge sits Frances, put a door on it, North facing, air brick, get a small fridge to go somewhere else, You have the perfect Larder space.
 
Oh, I get so fed up with people being so anal about food!

Is the whole point of jam not that is is a fruit preserve? It's a preservative, why would you need to refridgerate it?! Ours lives in the cupboard, I don't recall it ever being mouldy, but if it was I would just scrape it off!

I don't really agree with 'use by dates' and 'best befores' either - look at it, smell it, touch it - is it off? No? Then eat it!!!!

I have a pretty sturdy stomach, though that is probably due to not being overly 'fussy' with my food.

So true Laura.
Anything done in vinegar or sugar is preserved and lives in my cupboards.
OH is a bit funny about dates on food but would quite happily work with the pheasants and eat his lunch on the hoof with no hand washing so go figure.
I have 2 fridges and wouldn't ave room for food if all the sauces etc were in there.
As for mould, well course you get a bit on top of the jam sometimes. Especially home made.
I used to have a walk in larder and it was fab. Only needed a wee fridge then for perishables.
 
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