"The Pantry" was there one in your house?

[Timbuck]

In the 40's & 50's nobody for miles around Shiregreen owned a fridge (Well maybe the Butcher had one) we all had a "Pantry", they were all the same, a load of shelves with food items like Eggs,Cheese,Butter, Lard...a tin of Spam, Corned Beef,

Rock Salmon (Dog fish) ...A plate of Tripe and Chitterlings, maybe a Black Pudding or a jar of home made jam....This was just after Payday (and my Dad had a good job)...By the end of the week there was almost nowt ,which was good co's if it was left in there any longer than a week it would have gone mouldy or rotten...I remember a wooden box with metal mesh doors ,this was for the Sunday joint (if we could afford one) the mesh was to keep the flies off, the bacon went in this box also..and the main thing on the floor of Pantry was the 3 inch thick Cold Marble Slab that looked like a gravestone, This was to cool pies and cakes and such...And I almost forgot there was always a loaded Moustrap in the corner baited with a lump of stale chedder.

[lazyherbert]

We lived in the wicker and our pantry was on the cellar steps.It was cold summer & winter.Nothing went mouldy because it never lasted very long in our house.

[dunney]

The house we live in now has a stone slab at the top of the cellar and a stone table in the cellar. We also have hooks in the cellar where they used to hang the meat. It wouldnt be very cold nowadays though because the boiler is in there.

[Puffin4]

Timbuck,

 

My memories are just like yours. We lived in a house in Richmond which was built in 1938. I was born there in 1939, just before the war, in pre fridge days. There was a purpose built pantry about 4ft square and, like you, we had a wooden meatsafe with perforated zinc sides and door, to keep the flies off (not that it was necessary in the war) and a marble slab for standing things like milk, butter and other perishables on. When Dad was demobbed from the RAF in 1945, he resumed his old occupation as a manager for the B & C Co-op so we were usually not too badly off for food. We used to run short of things like coal and money of course.

 

Mike

[Bruno]

I knocked our pantry out earlier this year, house was built in 1939

[dunney]

In the early 60's my parents had a fish and chip shop, which is now under the M1 at tinsley, we were the only family in the street to have a fridge but it was always full of fish.

[Allen]

The house we live in now has a stone slab at the top of the cellar and a stone table in the cellar. We also have hooks in the cellar where they used to hang the meat. It wouldnt be very cold nowadays though because the boiler is in there.

Arh!...the cellar heer'd.

Our last house had one of them.

I miss the cellar now...very useful storage space.

[Basalt]

Yes, our pantry had a marble slab like a shelf towards the back. The mesh box was called a 'meat safe'.

 

You usually had one or two hooks in the ceiling and an opening small window covered by fine mesh or a ventilator.

 

Things you needed often near the front, occasional things at the back.

[MarionC]

We had a cellar 'ead, which kept everything cold, although my mum bought a fridge in the late '50's - first in the street! She was still using that fridge up to her death in 2000.

The house I lived in in Manchester was built in 1933 and had a fabulous pantry, it was much colder than the fridge, even in a hot summer! I do miss it

 

Marion

[Basalt]

It's interesting to note that on days when the outside temperature is near or below freezing it is actually warmer in your fridge. You are using energy to keep it warm. The pantry and particularly the cellar often was cold enough to store food OK.