Would be nice to see the inside of Grandma's pantry again

Anybody else out there fondly remember his grandmother’s pantry?

I can close my eyes and still see and smell Grandma Ereth’s pantry. She had stuff in there that I didn’t normally get anywhere else.

One unique thing was it was a walk-in pantry. Few people that I knew when I was little had one of those. Food at our house went in the kitchen cabinets.

It wasn’t a big pantry. It was only a two-bedroom house that had been my great-grandparent’s home. My mother had grown up in a one-bedroom house a few hundred feet away that didn’t have an indoor bathroom, let alone a walk-in pantry.

When you opened the door to the pantry the pull cord for the bare light bulb that illuminated its shelves was low enough for a kid to reach. The pantry was always our first stop anytime we visited or got dropped off. Grandma had no problem letting us snack any time of day, unless she knew we were about to have a meal.

Grandma’s pantry was always stocked with Hershey chocolate bars and two particular kinds of cookies -- Fig Newtons and crispy ginger snaps. She stocked it with other cookies and candy but those were the standard.

The refrigerator always had bottled Cokes, 7-Up and sometimes Fresca. The first sugar-free soft drink I ever tried was a Tab at her house. My family was hard-core Dr Pepper drinkers back in the day, but I don’t remember them in Grandma’s pantry. She bought the bottled soda pop in the cardboard six packs and stored those on the floor in the pantry before transferring them to the ’fridge.

The other thing we didn’t see anywhere else was the 8-ounce “Baby Cokes.” That might have been one reason you could get a Coke just about anytime you wanted.

If you showed up in the morning or spent the night she had the little individual serving size of cereal. You could have one for breakfast or a snack. Cap’n Crunch was my favorite but you could also partake of Fruit Loops or Frosted Flakes and more. Cereal at my other grandparents’ house was Shredded Wheat (for supper) and regular Corn Flakes without the sugar coating.

The pantry also was never without the little boxes of SunMaid Raisins. It was the only place I ever got a raisin.

Another item found in the pantry but rarely if ever at our house was the powdered drink Tang. About that time the astronauts were drinking it in space and that made it cool.

Like any pantry it was well stocked with canned goods. She had beets, which were rarely served other places I dined and I loved them. Somewhere along the line they fell out of favor with my palate and I haven’t had them in years.

It also had canned meats like Vienna sausages, Spam and sardines and oysters. The Vienna sausages were kept at home but not the other stuff. Granddad Ruby liked the sardines and oysters but I couldn’t stand them.

Other items stocked in the pantry, mainly for Granddad, was beer in cans and usually a bottle of whiskey on a high shelf.

Sure would be nice to hit that pantry and ’fridge one more time and share my school day with Grandma over a “Baby Coke” and ginger snaps.

Karl Terry writes for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at:

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