Where do you keep your food?

#25 -- Thanks for the word "safe" which was staying firmly lodged in the back of my mind. In very unsavory company, no doubt.

I absolutely have to start using emoticons!

I'm not a smiley face kind of person myself. I have a couple of quite unpleasant clients who bark orders by email, which they usually follow with an email containing nothing but a smiley - as if that makes being rude OK. It drives me nuts.

Don't forget the pie safe for storage of baked goods in general. The designs are actually holes pierced in the tin for air circulation.

I also have vague memories about of reading about a windowsill deal where dairy could be stored outside in cool weather.

In the Midwest most houses have pantries, basically large cupboards at the side of the kitchen with shelving for food on three sides. I don't think it's an unusual word at all.

We just called it the "foodpress" Built in cupboard with four shelves which held the delph/crockery and food. We didn't have a fridge till the mid 70s, milk delivered early every morning, meat bought in the butchers every day and most food bought in the local shop regularly so no big weekly supermarket trips.

The free-standing indoors safe was probably more common in Australia because the house interior was often cooler than outside, back in the days when we knew how to build houses, without air-con. The exterior box/cupboard thing would have been more common in New Zealand because it was usually cooler outside!

Another NZer who still has a pantry. My house is so small that I also keep some of the kitchen china on one shelf. We also had a safe - wooden and wire framed with access from inside the kitchen. Meat and milk were kept in it and during the really hot weather a wet towel was placed over the outside to help keep it cool. I was about 10 before we had a fridge as they were well outside our limited capital budget.

It's amazing the changes in a relatively short time. I never tire of reminiscing about growing up in NZ. I'm just 50 and I remember kicking through the sawdust on the butcher shop floor and mum having to leave her shoes at the door of the new library, so the stilletos didn't mark the new linoleum!!

mum having to leave her shoes at the door of the new library, so the stilletos didn't mark the new linoleum

I had to do that recently. A friend had just built their new house and just about cried when they saw me turn up in my shoes. In my defence I was intending to remove them prior to going inside!

But it wasn't on lino.