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For many people under fifty, the word "pantry" is a quaint one, like "larder" or "cellar." Often the name given to some nook off the suburban hallway, the idea behind a pantry is to have a dedicated storage place for food: something more systematic than the refrigerator (which is often more like a morgue) but less complicated than a survivalist compound. For someone living in their van, a pantry may not be much more than a shelf. For a homeless person it might be a special bag. For those blessed to have better shelter, it may be an entire room or section of the garage or basement.

A Home-Scale Grocery Store, Constantly Resupplied

The idea behind a pantry is to have a place where basic food ingredients are stored, in adequate quantity for a few days or months, providing basic ingredients for a variety of meals. For a single person who does not cook, the pantry may not be much more than a collection of semi-prepared foods: cans of soup and boxes of macaroni. What your pantry contains will depend on (a) what you eat, (b) how often you shop, and (c) how organized you are. Various authorities advise us that most cities have less than one week's inventory in their grocery stores: less for key staples, more for others. The Red Cross suggests that everyone have at least a three-day supply of food and water which does not require cooking or other preparation. Most home pantries contain more than that.

If one thinks of the pantry as your personal grocery store, it may be easier to stock it. What are the foods you most enjoy and what are the ingredients you use most? A pantry can help you re-think the way you acquire food, moving from a model of "shopping" to one of "re-stocking."

Develop a Basic List of Staple Foods for Your Pantry

What the pantry contains depends on who you are. Purchasing a fifty-pound bag of dried beans you will not eat is just silly, so begin by looking in your cupboards now, or reviewing what sorts of foods you have prepared at home over the past month. What foods do you most enjoy, like to take to potlucks, or prepare to increase your feeling of "hominess" or comfort? Those are the foods you should consider for your pantry, augmenting them with more adventurous or unusual things as you desire. This is a terrific list to start from. Make it a point to buy a little extra for backup, gradually building a solid pantry over time. This will help you avoid running out of things at the wrong moment, and let you take advantage of seasonal sales from time to time to "stock up" in reasonable amounts.

Does your family use condiments? Then perhaps one extra container of each should be in your larder. Are you a home canner? Calculate exactly how much jam or quarts of pickles you will want to eat or give away. If you love the chips or soda, admit that and plan for it: stocking up when its on sale without going on a binge. Creating a list of the sorts of things you want to have in your pantry is a terrific idea, and a copy of that can be posted in the pantry, perhaps with an extra copy to note what needs to be stocked. Many stores may be able to provide staples by the case by special order at a better-than-shelf-retail price, or a group of folks with similar needs might do a "group buy" or form a buying club.

Contain Costs with Lists, Receipts, a Price Book

For folks who have not maintained a pantry before, stocking it affordably can be a challenge. A list of what your pantry should contain is a good place to start. Another good tool for filling the pantry affordably is to begin keeping a "price book" with an inexpensive spiral notebook or perhaps on index cards. When you purchase something that you plan to buy again, simply record what it was, where and for how much. This will help you to get a handle on your expenditures and, more importantly, provide a solid record of what a "good price" really is. Many products are seasonal, and a price book helps you see this. If you are not ready to create a price book yet, just find a drawer or envelope where you can stuff receipts, for later reference. Sometimes the faintest ink is more reliable than the clearest memory.

Three Sample Pantries: Single, Couple, Family

If you really have no idea where to begin, below are a few sample pantry lists, for people in different circumstances. The first is for a single person of modest means. The second is for a couple who likes to cook breakfasts and dinners at home. The third is for a family with school-age children. None is as good as the list you develop yourself, based on how you cook and what you like to eat.

Simple Pantry for the Single Person

Single people will often rely more on prepared foods than groups, so a single-person's pantry is often not much more than a cupboard, with a few things in the refrigerator or freezer. Dried items usually include crackers, snack foods and perhaps a few pounds of dry goods such as pasta, rice, sugar, coffee and tea, as well as a few herbs or spices they like most: salt, pepper, rosemary. Canned goods might include cans of soup or vegetables, spaghetti sauce and semi-prepared foods such as boxed stuffing, "hamburger helper" or dry-box seasoning mixes like macaroni and cheese. There will usually be jars of jams, favorite condiments and things such as salsa, pickles, olives and canned meats or fish. A few fancier versions of these provide a quick way to entertain unexpected guests. Perishables usually include a few varieties of fruit and whatever vegetables they like for breakfast, snacks or salads. There may be milk, eggs or ice cream, a few frozen meats or juices, and usually an extra loaf or two of bread in the freezer. The main point is to make sure that there is something dependable for breakfast, and something simple to prepare at the end of the weekday. Treats for entertaining such are a nice touch, and adult beverages may or may not be part of the mix.

Sample Pantry for a Mildly-Domestic Couple

Couples tend to prepare meals differently than singles, so their pantries are usually larger, to match the unique tastes of two people, and perhaps entertain more often. Couples will usually have the same sorts of things that singles have, only more of them and in slightly larger quantities. Couples will tend to have a wider variety of breakfast foods, and will often stock basic ingredients for cooking such as a wider variety of oils, dry grains and vegetables such as potatoes, onions, celery and carrots. Comfort foods may include more varieties of ice cream and a wider variety of adult beverages and more choices for short-notice entertaining.

Production Pantry for a Family with School-Age Children

Children are finicky eaters whose tastes and needs change fairly often. Because children can be expensive, economy is more of an issue. With more sit-down meals to prepare, pantries for families with school-age children tend to be either larger or more specialized. Generally a family pantry will contain more foods that are simple for children to prepare or which can be used as snacks: vegetables, dried fruit, dry cereal, and more high-protein products for growing bodies such as milk, peanut butter and eggs. Techniques such as making large batches of soup or "stretching" a single dish such as a chicken or turkey across multiple meals are more common, and it is often more economical for families to purchase a whole animal (such as a pig or cow), or buy meat in "locker packs" from specialty shops such as Butcher Boys. High-calorie "comfort foods" and predictable menus tend to be more common in family pantries, with a strong incentive to buy things in larger quantities and to stock up during sales.

Many families also find it useful to do things such as making an outing to gather "u-pick" berries for freezing, to prepare their own jams or otherwise preserve fresh foods through canning or freezing. It is more important to have supplies on hand for a few dozen reliable recipes rather than use food as entertainment with a focus on new and different recipes each week.

Pantry Planning, Stocking Up and Comparison Shopping

Once you have established the sort of foods you eat most often, and the sort of foods that should be in your pantry, it is much easier to comparison shop and plan on restocking the pantry as things come on sale. If there are a few dozen items you want to have all the time, it is relatively easy to record prices at a variety of stores, and to replenish those stocks ahead of time. In combination with a "price book" or collection of past receipts, home economics becomes a simple, automatic habit.

Many basic cookbooks such as Betty Crocker, Fanny Farmer or Better Homes and Gardens have a suggested list of pantry items near the front. Barring this, simply assemble a list of your favorite meals, and note what are the common denominators or specialty items to have on hand for most or each. Alice Waters' book "The Art of Simple Food" and the Mennonite "More-with-Less Cookbook" are also excellent sources for developing a basic pantry list.

Rotating Stock to Assure Freshness

One of the most useful things about a pantry is that it makes it much easier to help others. If you know that you have enough food for a while, you are more likely to share it, and more able to give food to others in need.

The moment that food is slaughtered or cut from the ground or plan, it begins to decay, so for maximum nutrition one wants to be certain that one actually eats from the pantry, and follows the "first in, first out" (FIFO) rule. If you have a pantry, be sure to rotate your stock, perhaps labeling items with the date they went in. Keep an eye on things, so that foods are eaten in a timely manner, given to others or donated to a food bank before their "pull date." Most foods should not be stored for much more than a year, so resist the temptation to buy four dozen cans of cranberry sauce for the next ten Thanksgivings. Annual food drives and events such as Clark County's "walk and knock" provide an excellent opportunity to do well by doing good, and rotate out foods you will not eat while they are still wholesome and nutritious.

For Further Information

• Wikipedia articles on pantries, larders and root cellars.
• Wikipedia article on the Hoosier cabinet, a popular cupboard-style pantry for one-room dwellings.
• Alice Waters' The Art of Simple Food : Notes, Lessons, and Recipes from a Delicious Revolution. Clarkson N Potter Publishers, 2007. FVRL call number 641.5 WATERS or available new from Powells.
• Doris Janzen Longacre's 2003 edition of the More-With-Less Cookbook is a superb, low-impact, Mennonite cookbook. FVRL call number 641.563 MORE WI, also available from Powells.
• Peggy Layton's Cookin' with Home Storage is a cookbook in the Mormon tradition, which emphasizes having a very well-stocked pantry, consistently rotating from that storage. Available from Powell's.