With thanks to Guy Smith for the title of this blog post, this was pilfered from him.
Guy wrote an illuminating piece in FW last week following the new NFU campaign entitled 'Back British Farming' with the news that if all of the home produced food was consumed concurrently, we would have run out by the 14th August. As Guy noted in his piece, the national larder is bare and this is not good news.
Fast forward to a silly Bank Holiday conversation on Twitter earlier today. Bypassing the big discussion on the future of agricultural production for another day, a few of us quickly segued into a discussion on the place where we keep food at home.
Who has a larder these days? Is it a larder, or is it a pantry? Is this a north/south thing? I used to deliver milk to an old lady who had to have milk delivered every day fresh because she didn't have a fridge, she kept everything in the 'pantry.' Another old lady didn't have this, but had a stone slab in the cellar which kept everything very cold. We used to have one in our house in Leeds as well. Turns out, this is called a 'thrawl.'
Do these even exist in modern homes? Is there some link between how we source, keep and cook food at home - that essentially we don't need to think too much about this as we used to - with what has happened to our self sufficiency? When buying food we can get just about get whatever we need whenever we need it, and over time successive governments have taken a similar approach.
Obviously, things have to change. In the meantime, here are some ridiculous pictures of pantries:
"I bake cakes and I have a dog called Hector."
"I haven't eaten anything that isn't out of a tin since 1994."
"The ladder yah, is vintage, we use it in the pantry and in the library. So versatile."
"I am nuts."
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