Pantry Ponderings

As I stood at the pantry trying to decide which salt to use on a dish of noodles I was preparing for lunch, it suddenly struck me -- I have six or more kinds of salt in there -- pink, gray, white, sea and land, French, Australian, Italian -- and the only Morton's salt is the box of kosher salt. Boy, have things changed.

Anyway, it got me to thinking about how my pantry in general has changed. Six kinds of chiles, five different vinegars, cannella as well as cassia, summaq, star anise, bonito flakes, yuca flour, and more. I grew up in a fairly adventurous family of foodies, so we never had a standard pantry, but nothing like this.

This may just be an observation, rather than the start of a thread, but I was thinking perhaps others might be amazed and perhaps a little awed when they contemplate the growing diversity of ingredients not only available, but actually in their possession.

I will say, given the history of salt in particular and spices in general, I feel mighty rich to have all this stuff available.

I used to only have Gold Medal all-purpose flour in my pantry, but ever since I learned breadmaking:
AP
Bread
High Gluten
Traditional Whole Wheat
White Whole Wheat
Whole Wheat Pastry
Durum/Semolina
Rye/Pumpernickel


I only have Kosher salt, but make up for it by having 6 types of soy sauce and 3 different types each of fish sauce, shrimp paste, and miso. I hoard the fermented stuff since they keep indefinitely anyway.

Yeah -- flour is fun. I don't have your variety of bread flours, but I do have chickpea, millet, rice, and yuca/tapioca/cassave flour. Takes up a lot of space, but each one goes with a different cuisine. However, when I do bake (mostly at the holidays), I'm still pretty much dependent on the all-purpose stuff I've always used.

Cynthia wrote:I will say, given the history of salt in particular and spices in general, I feel mighty rich to have all this stuff available.

And I am thankful to have Penzy's and The Spice House in Evanston available locally to supply me.

lougord99 wrote:And I am thankful to have Penzy's and The Spice House in Evanston available locally to supply me.

Amen to that.

So, dinner rolls around, and I find myself musing over another major change in my pantry: oils. When I was growing up, the choice was Wesson (remember the ad where they fried a whole loaf of bread?) or Mazola. There may have been a few other brands, but not a lot -- and no real differences.

Now I've got three kinds of olive oil, walnut oil, avocado oil, and a variety of flavored oils -- basil, lemon, and truffle (olive or avocado oil base). At times, I've used palm oil and peanut oil, and I've tasted pistachio oil and hazelnut oil. So another dramatic change in supplies.

A few years ago, friends of mine visited from Australia. Now, almost no one in the world has the range of choices we have in America, and to be honest, not everywhere in America has the range of choices we have in Chicago -- and that includes Australia. After a couple of big grocery stores and lunch at foodlife, they asked me, "Don't you ever get tired of having so many choices?" Actually, no. It's why I love Chicago. One doesn't run out of options.