Homage to woke and not-so-woke pantry staples: Wyn Drabble

Both Marmite and Vegemite have featured in Wyn Drabble's pantry. Photo / NZME

Opinion

Wyn Drabble is a teacher of English, writer, public speaker and musician. He is based in Hawke’s Bay.

An article in last week’s New Zealand Herald piqued my interest. It reported the top five pantry staples in Kiwi homes so I wanted to find out whether our home is “normal”.

The good news is that it is but only after a few tweaks.

Number one was Marmite though it did have “or Vegemite” in brackets so I can give it a tick for our house. Either one has figured in all of my life.

I’m not a breakfast person but on weekends my regular late-morning brunch is Vegemite on Vogel’s. And here is my first tweak; the article said “spread thinly on hot buttered Vogel’s” but for me the Vogel’s must have cooled to room temperature so the butter does not melt in. To each his or her own.

The second item was a half-used bag of rolled oats. Tick. But I need to add the proviso that they are not used by me personally. I don’t do porridge but, if pressed, I would be willing to whip up a batch of Anzac biscuits.

Third on the list was “a can (or seven) of Wattie’s baked beans”. Tick but with a tweak. In our cupboard they are invariably of a different brand as we find the local product just a little too sweet. And alongside the baked beans are chilli beans but here I feel I’m getting dangerously close to woke territory.

Every few weeks if my culinary get up and go has got up and gone I’ll have what I call “a blokey meal”. I toast a handsome slab of bread and top it with heated beans and a couple of fried eggs. I admit to a woke final step; I strew the whole assemblage with a storm of snipped chives freshly scissored from the garden.

It’s a big tick for number four, Edmonds Baking Powder (and probably the whole Edmonds range). And I feel our home is typical in that it also houses a rather battered copy of the Edmonds Cookery Book. Mrs D makes the world’s best shortbread and, while the recipe has been delicately tweaked over the years, it is firmly based on the Edmonds recipe.

At number five is “tomato sauce (Wattie’s, obviously)”. Tick. The article said “a bottle of sweet chilli sauce is fast becoming a regular companion”. Another tick. But alongside these two there lurks a woke wonderland: feijoa chutney, piccalilli, tomato relish and … wait for it … peacharine, apple and cranberry sweet relish!

The article added a number of contenders which “narrowly missed the cut” but most of these don’t get the tick in our house. Soy sauce, yes, but no tick for condensed milk, rice bubbles, cocoa pops, instant noodles and powdered onion soup mix. I’m not at all ashamed to say that we lack those items and I don’t believe I have ever eaten instant noodles.

If this article had been written many decades ago when I was a mere child, another item would have a starring role alongside the five that have stood the test of time. In those days we had a safe (a sort of a ventilated cupboard protruding from the side of the house) and that was home to this iconic item though it was promoted to the fridge when these became more common.

While it was indispensable in its day, you don’t seem to see this culinary standby much anymore and that’s probably a good thing. For younger readers, discretion is advised here. The symbol of the 50s (and even 60s) kitchen was … drum roll, please … a chipped enamel bowl, full of solidified fat.