Here's an improbably mental puzzle for you. If you were stranded on a desert island (with stove, oven and good bug screens), what items in your pantry would you really want to bring along? It's a question that Lynda has asked and answered on The Perfect Pantry. She lists 23 items she'd like to have and her top five are: two types of salt (kosher and sea), black peppercorns, soy sauce and honey. I think that my top five would be kosher salt, black peppercorns, olive oil, garlic powder (the California style kind, with the parsley flakes) and a hardy rosemary plant that was impossible to kill (I have yet to find one of these in real life).
Lynda is having a whole week of Things We Can't Live Without over on The Perfect Pantry, so you'll also find a list of 13 invaluable baking ingredients as well as her readers' top choices for the things that must be in their pantries at all times.
What's in your essential pantry?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
4-10-2008 @ 3:16PM
Numb said...
Salt, soy sauce, olive oil, Parmigiano-Reggiano, and maybe hot sauce? I'm not certain on the last one, but the first four are definite.
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4-10-2008 @ 6:10PM
Branwine said...
Salt, olive oil, pepper flakes, garlic, sugar, cocoa, baking soda and flour. The first four because I could do anything with those and the last four so I could make chocolate pudding cake with the coconut milk I would find on this island! I might have to try this! Not the desert island but coconut milk in my cake! At first I thought it was dessert island!
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4-10-2008 @ 6:54PM
CreamBunny said...
So this isn't really an improbable "mental puzzle" as much as it is a fantasy list, right? If you wanted to make this a bit more "puzzling" or challenging, you might want to add a cap to the amount of things on the list, no? and maybe also to not have the option to give your living potted herbs immortality or super powers--would help.
so, without that specified, I'd like to have all the contents of my pantry (and fridge, and greenhouse) brought along with me to this island, having had just bought the entire contents of a supermarket the night before my stranding.
Top 5?: olive oil, black pepper, garlic powder, sugar, and flour.
Salt, my friends, is something that would be readily available to you if you were stranded on an island. So would you really have to be that particular in needing kosher salt especially...?
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4-11-2008 @ 1:49AM
Kitt said...
Yeah, assuming you're surrounded by seawater, salt's not an issue. I'd take as many seeds for herbs and vegetables as I could carry.
And a case of vodka.
Kitt
http://www.kittalog.com
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4-12-2008 @ 1:14AM
jocelyn said...
My parent's neighbors have one of those rosemary plants.... I've driven over it several times, as they have a shared driveway. It hangs over the driveway and will likely be there forever.
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