紗柜

[Ian_Lee]

Does anybody recall what 紗柜 is?

紗柜 was very important in the kitchen before refrigerator became popular. It is a small kitchen cabinet with a small side-push threaded screen door.

During those days when everybody didn't have much money and had to work on different schedules, your mom would save some food and left them in the 紗柜 for you when you came back late from work/school.

The threaded screen door was used to shelter the food from the nasty fly or roach. The cabinet door could not be solid kind because the food might easily rot if it stayed in a tightly closed cabinet under hot weather.

Why do I mention 紗柜? Because I find out lately there are still many houses in Hawaii equipped with this kind of fixture. Many houses, which were built in the '20s and '30s, are put on sale in the sizzling property market. And when they have open house, I find out that many of them still get this kind of fixture.

But when my kids asked me what that is, I had to ponder a while before I could answer them.

[zhwj]

Interesting. The apartment I rent now in Beijing has a small cabinet of that sort in the kitchen.

There's a photo on this page of an industrial kitchen model, I think.

[liuzhou]

I have one in my kitchen, although it not used for its original purpose.