THE pantry is traditionally the place where you store the pain — and we don't mean your husband.
The name for the cupboard (and increasingly room) where we store our food comes from the French word pain — meaning bread.
Then there's the butler's pantry, re-emerging as a "must" in new homes, despite very few of us employing a butler to live in it — because that's what they did.
Yes indeedy, the butler slept in the pantry because that's where the precious household silverware was kept and part of his job was to keep it safe.
The modern version of a butler's pantry not only fails to contain a butler, there is also no sign of their bed, or the family silver. What you will find in the modern butler's pantry is a sink for doing the washing-up out of sight of the guests.
Now since the washing-up was generally done in the scullery, should we look at renaming these modern must-haves altogether?
Probably not, since the scullery is traditionally for cleaning and storing dishes and cooking utensils, ironing and boiling water for cooking or bathing.
Sounds awfully like a combined laundry and kitchen.
Confused?
There's more.
The food was prepared in the larder but cooked in the kitchen, which was often outside — yet another "innovation" to be found in new homes.
Everything old is new again.
