Pantry

Remember the walk-in pantry? Of course you don’t.

It was lined with jars of preserves and dusky spices, sacks of flour, grains, sugar and nuts, salt and pepper, strings and papers, combs of honey and baskets of onions, nuts and pumpkins; and bottles of olive oils and vinegars.

Necklaces of dried chillies, fresh garlic and herbs hung from the ceiling.

There was a shelf of baking needs, pastes, pickles and chutneys; fresh eggs - complete with feathers - resting on a cool marble slab, windfall baskets of fruit, rounds of cheese and squares of butter, tea leaves and coffee beans and all those things one had to ‘store in a cool place’ before we were duped into thinking the refrigerator was sent from heaven.