Open Writing

In the mid-nineteenth century, when transportation routes on land and water had been established in the US, an industry grew up around the harvesting and storing of ice from all of the major lakes in the north, for use in icebox refrigerators. This lasted into the 1930’s, when the electric refrigerator was introduced into the home. In an average winter, ice on the Great Lakes, and the Finger Lakes of up-state New York, could be several feet thick, and was cut into large blocks to be stored in insulated icehouses for later distribution.

Many of the folk museums in those regions exhibit faded photographs of the men and equipment involved in the ice harvesting: large wooden sleds drawn by pairs of draught horses, massive crosscut saws, and the huge tongues and tackle used to lift the blocks. The icehouses, some of which are still standing, were located close to railheads or canals so that the blocks could be shipped to cities where they were cut to fit the iceboxes and delivered to homes and businesses.
When I mention in conversation that there was no icebox or refrigerator in the English home where I was raised, my words are greeted with incredulity. But that was the truth. My mother’s first electric refrigerator was installed after almost forty years of marriage, long after I had left the home. It was perhaps three cubic feet in capacity and had an icemaker that would produce ten cubes every twenty-four hours, but only if you emptied and refilled the tray. I suspect that the tray was filled only once in the years mother had the appliance, since she had no need of ice cubes.

Up to the time the refrigerator was installed, what we had for food storage was what all of our neighbors had, a pantry. The pantry wasn’t just a cupboard like many homes in the US have today, including mine; it was a walk-in space under the stairs with a full-sized door. Its central feature was a large, thick stone slab, and it was this, along with a wire gauze covered vent to the outside of the house, that produced the cooling.
It was so effective that in the wintertime we had to lay a cloth “sausage” across the bottom of the pantry door to cut down the inrush of freezing air, and many times we’d have to skim the ice from the top of liquids in the pantry. Even in summer, albeit an English summer, the pantry was cool, and most of the contents stayed fresh because we shopped frequently. The exception was Saturday’s milk, which had to last until Monday, and often went sour in the summer. But this wasn’t seen as detrimental because my mother used it in baking, or if not, we would make it into cheese by straining out the whey through a silk stocking.

In addition to the stone slab, there were wooden shelves for other commodities, but one shelf, my favorite, was reserved for left-overs. The left-overs might include some cold, mashed or roasted potatoes, a small piece of roast meat, chicken or fish, a piece of apple pie, or a portion from a variety of puddings my mother used to make. It was understood that whatever was on that shelf was fair pickings, no questions asked, and it would be the place I’d head for as soon as I got home from school.

On one occasion there was a piece of meat that seemed overly generous for the left-over shelf, but hunger quelled any doubts I might have had about whether or not it was mine for the taking. That week we were taking care of a neighbor’s dog, and in the evening my mother asked if I had fed him, to which I replied that I had not. Immediately I realized that the meat I had eaten that afternoon was the dog’s dinner! That wouldn’t have been so bad except that it was horsemeat, this being before the days of canned and dry pet foods. It actually tasted pretty good.

Home made pickles and jams played a large part in our family economy, so some of the other shelves would be loaded with wild raspberry, blackberry, and crabapple jams, and rosehip syrup. Until World War II began, my mother would also make the most wonderful marmalade from the bitter Seville oranges. Her mother was the “pickle queen,” and contributed pickled onions, tiny cucumbers called gherkins, and piccalilli that was so good I ate it between two slices of bread as a sandwich!

At the back of the pantry, where the space tapered down under the stair treads, was an area reserved for long-term storage. At any one time there would likely be two large, glazed earthenware bowls on the floor, covered in muslin. We called them panshions, though I don’t know the derivation of the word or what it meant. Interestingly, a web search produced a number of references, mostly from the area where I grew up, though none included a derivation.

The panshions were normally used for mixing and raising bread dough, and were well designed for this task. The base was perhaps ten inches in diameter and the rim roughly twenty. The sides were straight so that the panshion could be laid over almost on its side. The user held the rim with one hand and mixed the dough with the other. After the dough was kneaded, it would be dusted with flour and left in the tilted panshion to rise in the warmth from the open fire.

But the panshions in the pantry were put to a completely different use. In the winter, when the hens were not laying, one would contain eggs pickled in a clear gelatin called isinglass. I don’t recall the process, or what the eggs tasted like, but it seemed to work. The other panshion held either fermenting ginger beer or dandelion wine that my mother had made.

As convenient as refrigerators are, the food they contain takes on a lifeless quality, and when I open the door, there is no smell. By contrast, my mother’s pantry harbored the soft, comforting smells it had absorbed in the years it had stored good cheeses and fruit, freshly made bread, hams and yeast and ginger beer, wine and milk. I can smell it my mind even now.

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