It’s funny what people inherit from their parents. Some get the smart gene, the funny gene, the angry gene. Me? I get the pantry gene. I didn’t invent the idea of pull-out drawers, but I’ll be damned if mine get as out of control as my mother’s.Â
A display of mutated pantry genetics at work.
It’s hard to read, but here’s some relish from June 2005. Opened.
Why bother closing the top of the cereal boxes when you can just shut the drawer?
Candy, granola bars, nuts, baking soda. They’re all in the same genre.Â
Cans and condiments gone wild.
I love you, mom.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
I “see” your 2005 relish and “raise” you our 2004 ginourmous bottle of Sam’s Club ketchup…UNOPENED!
Dear lord. I strongly suspect our mothers must be related. Or it’s just a Jewish tradition to keep expired food in the fridge.
Have you ever seen the Albert Brooks movie “Mother”? In it Debbie Reynold’s plays the mother and Albert Brooks is her son. There is scene in the movie where he is going thru his mother’s fridge and finds expired ice cream. If you have ever lived with a person who keeps expired food in their fridge/freezer you will piss yourself watching that scene from laughing!
I am certain I got the hog-gene. Errr is that right? It’s the exact opposite of pantry gene. Food stays in our fridge in a matter of days. You’ll see lots of empty packs and whatnot.
Reading your entry is so fun to read.
Glad I didn’t get any of the angry gene. 
I like pantry and hog gene better lol!
Devra, I see your 2004 bottle of Sam’s Club ketchup and raise you my mother-in-law’s opened box of cake flour that expired in 1986. I just threw it out last year. I didn’t even meet my husband until 1994.
Eww.
My mom (whose pantry drawers look exactly like your mother’s, by the way) hoards boxes of matzah during Passover and keeps them from year to year. Not that the matzah tastes any different but still… I keep asking her… is she worried there will come a Spring when there will be a massive matzah shortage? Seriously, her laundry room looks like a manishevitz storage facility.
I wish I had my mom’s pantry genes. Her pantry is amazingly organized. She used to come to my house and set out on a trip to find organizing gadgets for my deep dark depths of pantry. She finally admitted to me a few visits ago that she had given up. My pantry is beyond her capabilities to organize. It’s THAT bad.
That relish jar has me speechless. I found a 2004 Pot Pie…..three years later.
I recently horrified myself by cleaning out my pantry, but I think your mom has me beat. My parents moved out of the house I grew up in last year and there was food in that kitchen from when I was a KID. *shudder*