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Pantry Boxes
No matter how technologically advanced Americans have become in the years since the Mayflower first dropped anchor, one thing has consistently plagued housekeepers: critters in the pantry. Colonial women kept dairy products and grains well away from the cooking hearth, in small rooms called “butteries.” Like today’s homemakers, they fought an ongoing battle to keep bugs and mice away from flour, sugar, and other dry comestibles whose storage posed a problem until the introduction of covered stoneware crocks and their even more expedient successor, the pantry box.
Food storage boxes were imported from Europe until American factories began producing them during the late 18th century. Some were varnished plain wood, but many were painted in pretty colors that brightened a plain corner when stacked floor-to-ceiling. Even the Shakers, who shunned worldly excess, often finished their immaculately constructed boxes in cheerful shades of blue, red, yellow, and green. Typically, pantry boxes were issued in nesting sets of graduated size, with the largest meant for storing slabs of cheese or butter, the smallest for pills or spices, and the in-between sizes for everything else. Each had a snug-fitting lid.
Shaker pantry boxes are a fine art. The pointed fingers, or laps, on the side of the box always pointed in the same direction as the laps on the box lid, and early examples were constructed using copper nails. The Shakers made their boxes communally, one at a time, so the fit of the lid was always perfect. Later Shaker boxes had straight-cut finger laps that were machine-cleated.
Generally, oval boxes painted or of natural wood bring higher prices than round boxes; the most expensive are oval finger-lap boxes with original paint. But don’t let size fool you: biggest isn’t always the best. Miniatures are often the most rare—and the most expensive.
Food storage boxes were imported from Europe until American factories began producing them during the late 18th century. Some were varnished plain wood, but many were painted in pretty colors that brightened a plain corner when stacked floor-to-ceiling. Even the Shakers, who shunned worldly excess, often finished their immaculately constructed boxes in cheerful shades of blue, red, yellow, and green. Typically, pantry boxes were issued in nesting sets of graduated size, with the largest meant for storing slabs of cheese or butter, the smallest for pills or spices, and the in-between sizes for everything else. Each had a snug-fitting lid.
Shaker pantry boxes are a fine art. The pointed fingers, or laps, on the side of the box always pointed in the same direction as the laps on the box lid, and early examples were constructed using copper nails. The Shakers made their boxes communally, one at a time, so the fit of the lid was always perfect. Later Shaker boxes had straight-cut finger laps that were machine-cleated.
Generally, oval boxes painted or of natural wood bring higher prices than round boxes; the most expensive are oval finger-lap boxes with original paint. But don’t let size fool you: biggest isn’t always the best. Miniatures are often the most rare—and the most expensive.
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kjacobso |
Latest page update: made by kjacobso
, Jun 19 2007, 11:51 AM EDT
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| Started By | Thread Subject | Replies | Last Post | ||
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| italianpeasant | I PANT FOR PANTRY BOXES | 0 | Jun 9 2008, 7:41 PM EDT by italianpeasant | ||
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Thread started: Jun 9 2008, 7:41 PM EDT
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I JUST LOVE PANTRY BOXES & BUCKETS, I LIKE THE OLD FADED PAINT & PATINA & WHEN THE LOOK DOESN'T SUIT ME, I PAINT THEM COUNTRY COLORS & PUT A FINISH ON THEM TO MAKE THEM LOOK MORE PRIMITIVE
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