What and how much goes into your minimalist pantry when you know you are not long for this flat? Especially when you love cooking but hate throwing away unused food? Lifestyle helps: in much of the world, people buy small amounts of groceries two or three times a week, because stores are within a five-minute walk and kitchens are very small, without a lot of storage space. We’ve adopted this habit, so don’t actually ‘go shopping’ very often – instead we pick up two things we need for tonight’s dinner. And that, plus the fact that we’re carrying everything on the walk home, also keeps us from buying more than we need. That said, it requires a certain amount of discipline to buy only what we are confident we can use up. Especially toward the end of a stay.
Herbs and Spices
You can’t get along without salt and pepper, and we buy them both in little plastic grinders. (We have occasionally moved these around with us, but only when we have ample space and weight.) Beyond that we buy only the bare minimum of herbs and spices. For us that is no more than three: one spicy, one herby, and one we just love. We aim for versatile. So chili powder, oregano, paprika, (which sends you in the direction of chili, but also perhaps Italian). Or red pepper flakes, coriander and curry powder (Indian). We also like thyme, and spice blends like five-spice powder, ras el hanout, or za’atar. But some of the flavours we love (tarragon and sage, for instance) are just too distinctive to use every day, so we avoid them. If we’re making first-day minestrone we throw all of our spices into the pot and come up with something new every time. If you eat porridge/oatmeal or do any baking, cinnamon is a must-have, and it can be used in all kinds of savoury dishes too.
We’ve recently been converted to the fresh-but-preserved herbs that come in tubes (there are a few pictured above): basil, coriander, ginger, dill, and mint are our favourites. They keep longer than the uncut ones and – because we often don’t have good knives – save us a lot of cutting misery. We’ve also switched over to bouillon cubes instead of making our own stock. We are a little snobby about garlic and onions, so we buy those fresh (we’re also worried about having to throw away the powdered ones).
Oils and Vinegars
We always buy olive oil and nearly always balsamic vinegar. Sometimes we buy sherry vinegar, which is more versatile, but we love balsamic in our salads so that usually wins. In our new life we are too lazy to cut lemons, so we buy a small bottle of real lemon juice and keep it in the fridge; it works like vinegar to freshen things up, and we use it all over the place. (Limes are hard to find in Europe.)
Other Condiments
Two or three of the following are usually in our refrigerator (rarely more). They all have in common a strong flavor profile; they are things you can throw into a stew or eggs or pasta or a meat dish to give it a punch.
- soy sauce (a must for certain dishes, but it’s always a struggle to use it up)
- dijon or whole-grain mustard
- horseradish or harissa (for meats, but also great to throw into sauces and stews)
- tomato paste (in a resealable tube, kept in the fridge)
- tapenade or capers
Grains, Beans, Cans, Frozen Stuff, Nuts
We’re learning, slowly, to break our COVID-related habit of stockpiling food. A couple of cans of tuna fish or some frozen shrimp to throw into a salad, canned tomatoes and/or beans, and one frozen vegetable (usually peas), just in case. We buy pasta or rice or both on our very first trip to the store, and we like lentils, so often get a bag of them as well. And we snack on dried fruits and nuts, so usually have at least one of each on hand.
And that’s about all we buy that doesn’t go into the fridge. We’re fairly improvisational as cooks, and it’s interesting and fun to try things we love with different spice combinations – but we do also have to be careful what we decide to make, and to plan for the complicated many-ingredient dishes early in our stay somewhere, to give us lots of time to use up the leftover ingredients. (We did mention that being a meandering minimalist is hard work!)
What are the three or four spices and condiments you can’t live without?
