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Yeah. You probably need a custom made labels for each kind of flour.
Or you get a single plastic air tight container with locking lid for each type of flour and mark each container with a sharpie pen as to which flour each will store. Then continue to use them as marked. When one empties out, wash it, dry it, and put new flour into it.
This system has worked well for me. The sharpie worked great. There was no need for labels.
Yeah. You probably need a custom made labels for each kind of flour.
An older housecleaner my parents employed did a lot of baking and kept various types of flour on hand. She once told my mother about the custom bin labels she used. They were small flat paddle shaped varnished wooden tags (with ink or painted lettering: wheat, corn, etc) placed INSIDE the flour cannisters identifying which product it contained at the time. After she removed flour to bake, she'd stick the wooden paddle into what remained in the cannister. The next time she opened that cannister it would be visible.
Seem to recall she suggested choosing cannisters with lids that had incorporated knobs on top, not flat ones. There were ceramic or wooden tags on small chains that looped around the knobs identifying what type of flour would be found inside. What was printed on the cannister itself didn't matter as much: you could buy multiple "FLOUR" cannisters but still keep the contents separated.
I'd bet you could find such custom tags on Etsy.
Last edited by Parnassia; 04-19-2023 at 12:07 PM..
I keep flour in a drawer. I slide the bag into a big zip bag for easy identification and to keep out the air. Old flour can go moldy or rancid (especially whole wheat), so I don't buy in huge quantities. And lately I've been eating low carb, so haven't baked in months.
My grandmother had a small Hoosier cabinet and used it for flour storage. Back in the 1940s and 1950s bread wasn't nearly as available at the store, so most every day she made biscuits or cornbread, and usually a cake once or twice a week depending on their financial situation that week.
I enjoy baking, but with kids long gone on their own and no grandkids around, and both of us on pared-down diets, I hardly ever bake. I made banana bread this weekend for me to have a slice for breakfast each day. That's the first thing I've made in months. It just wouldn't be practical to have a flour storage of that size.
My bro and sister in law have a small antiques business and had one of those hoosier cabinets in the eat-in-kitchen... they are very homey-looking, I gotta say that. As I recall it was oak, with an enameled steel counter and a punched galvanized steel pie safe. And the sis-in-law just gave the hoosier to her daughter while their own kitchen is being remodeled.
Real life doesn't resemble the life in cartoons, so there is no reason to think anyone would follow it.
...
Where do you think the cartoon got it from?
There are many who look for these type of antique products. To each their own!
Disparaging comments aren't really helpful. Sometimes we may not be able to expand on what we are looking for other than the first thing that we see. Give em a break.
To the OP, check ebay, fb marketplace or Craigslist. Maybe Google some like photos to reference.
I worked (very briefly) in a bakery when I was in high school in the 70s. They sifted the flour because of bugs. If customers complained about bugs in the bread, the owner's wife was hostile and asked what did they expect in the warm weather?
I use the tightest-sealing glass jars with rubber seals on the lids for anything I buy in a bag or box.
I've had two Hoosier-type cabinets in my life. One was in furnished rental and the other given to me by a friend. One had a stainless-steel lined tilt out drawer that I'm guessing was designed to hold a lot of flour but I never used it for that since I rarely bake. The one that was given to me was used in cabin where I lived off-grid for three years, rounding out the functionality of living simply without many modern conveniences.
I have since "modernized" and now keep flour/sugar etc in authentic Tupperware canisters from the 1970s that push air out when you seal the lid. The big canisters hold a 5lb bag of flour and keep it bug free. If I go through 5lbs in a year, it's a lot...still not a baker.
In the Looney Tunes cartoon, "Feed the Kitty" (Bulldog Marc Anthony & Pussyfoot), the Misses is shown getting her flour out of a pull open slot drawer, being next to one marked sugar.
Why don't we do it that way? Was it because they are impossible to keep clean? Too easy for pests to occupy? Some other cleaniness reason?
Or is it just that we don't bake like we once did.....long ago.
Just a thought - but maybe more sugar and flour dust is in the air when using a large bin. And sugar and flour dust are both highly combustible.
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