ZOMG, when Americans talk about a pantry they mean a cupboard? I always thought they meant, you know, a pantry (which would be a whole separate mini room for storing food)...
Well... It's a cupboard! 'The kitchen cupboard', maybe, though I think people tend to have more than one for different sorts of things - so you might have tea and stuff above the kettle, cereal and things near the fridge, vegetables under the chopping board...
Why is it no one here has a larder? Fine British word! Means sizeable-thing-in-kitchen-for-keeping-food-in AND/OR room-outside-kitchen-for-keeping-food-in!
Is this totally out of date now? I mean, I don't have one, but my flat is the size of a postage stamp, so I lack many amenities. Everyone in my family that has a house has a larder/equivalent.
Larder=pantry, to me, and not something I know people who have. I think my family just uses the garage for anything for which a cupboard doesn't suffice - it's where the Christmas pudding lives while it matures...
Actually, in the US a pantry can be either a separate room/walk-in closet for storing food OR a large cabinet/cupboard in the kitchen for food... I have the latter but would kill for the former (there's just no space for it in our house).
I probably should have qualified that with 'British people'! :D Granted, here at uni I don't even have a cupboard for my food, so it all lives on a table tucked out of the way (with its crockery and cutlery), but it seems weird that potatoes should live with tins of beans!
Almost definitely. (I'm second-guessing myself on the potatoes-beans thing, because I'm suddenly remembering when I was really small and we did have a wall-high cupboard, with potatoes at the bottom and other stuff on shelves. But I don't think that's standard. I mean, as a rule, I think British kitchens tend to have several little cupboards (above and below the work surface) before they have big ones, so your stuff gets split up by necessity.
I think it depends on the age of the house; places built well before fridges were common frequently have walk-in pantries, usually with a stone slab shelf at the end to try to keep things cool on. All the police houses I lived in as a child (ten of them) had them. I'm currently staying with friends in a house built in 1820, which has one. OTOH I suspect some houses had them converted into downstairs loos where that was feasible.
Ah, that makes sense - it's true that I and most of my friends from home live in post-war commuter houses. (It may well explain why one friend's house, definitely much older than mine, had a downstairs loo right next to the kitchen, which I did always think was a bit weird... Dunno if it lets college off the hook for the fact that some of the Victorian halls have toilets in the bloody kitchen (they're in fully walled and doored-off cubicles, but it's a bit gross).)
Still, I'm thinking more of big cupboards (not walk-in) that people might have to accommodate all their food and I'm not really doing very well. I mean, even little bed-sit kitchenettes - in the ones my friends have food still ends up in clusters.
I have discovered so many odd things between British English and American English when it comes to furnishings and the like - I start with this really weird picture in my mind, then eventually realise that they are just using the 'wrong' word.
I mean what does a bedroom with a hutch and an armoire bring to mind? Especially if it also has half a bathroom with a commode in it...
I often wondered if they kept rabbits, guinea pigs or hamsters in the hutch - and wondered why they had a specialist place for armour - not to mention a hip bath and a, well, commode!
It means they have a cupboard (hutch!) and a wardrobe (armour), and an en-suite loo ('a half bathroom'...!). Apparently in parts of the US commode also means the plumbed in variety...!!
ETA - not to mention the flatware - which probably wouldn't be in the bedroom - unless it is the bedroom of a student or similar...
Right a pantry is like a large closet for storing food. But the shelves in your kitchen, above and below the kitchen counters, are kitchen cupboards/cabinets.
ETA: Oh, I see this has already been clarified, ha!
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Date: 2010-04-21 06:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-21 06:59 am (UTC)What do you call it if it's a big cupboard in the kitchen?
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Date: 2010-04-21 07:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-21 07:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-21 05:09 pm (UTC)Is this totally out of date now? I mean, I don't have one, but my flat is the size of a postage stamp, so I lack many amenities. Everyone in my family that has a house has a larder/equivalent.
I feel very strange, suddenly.
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Date: 2010-04-21 05:24 pm (UTC)Clearly you are strange.
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Date: 2010-04-21 07:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-21 07:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-21 07:25 am (UTC)The only things not in there are the tea, and the various refrigerated stuff.
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Date: 2010-04-21 07:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-21 07:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-21 07:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-21 09:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-21 11:47 am (UTC)Still, I'm thinking more of big cupboards (not walk-in) that people might have to accommodate all their food and I'm not really doing very well. I mean, even little bed-sit kitchenettes - in the ones my friends have food still ends up in clusters.
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Date: 2010-04-21 12:50 pm (UTC)I mean what does a bedroom with a hutch and an armoire bring to mind? Especially if it also has half a bathroom with a commode in it...
I often wondered if they kept rabbits, guinea pigs or hamsters in the hutch - and wondered why they had a specialist place for armour - not to mention a hip bath and a, well, commode!
It means they have a cupboard (hutch!) and a wardrobe (armour), and an en-suite loo ('a half bathroom'...!). Apparently in parts of the US commode also means the plumbed in variety...!!
ETA - not to mention the flatware - which probably wouldn't be in the bedroom - unless it is the bedroom of a student or similar...
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Date: 2010-04-21 02:58 pm (UTC)This is the problem with writing American dialogue/POVed prose in fic - you spend so much time feeling really really silly...
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Date: 2010-04-21 02:15 pm (UTC)That's what I mean, too! And I'm American!
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Date: 2010-04-21 02:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-21 08:19 pm (UTC)ETA: Oh, I see this has already been clarified, ha!
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Date: 2010-04-22 04:39 pm (UTC)