Where do you live that exterior temperatures are cold enough to do that year round? As in, there is no summer or summer temperatures?

A traditional root cellar takes advantage of the earth’s constant temperature, summer or winter. But that requires digging down well below the frost line to access the earth’s thermal mass.

another link with some ideas: http://www.resilience.org/stories/2006-11-22/passive-cooling/

I think without insulation it would be too hot in the summer to store anything and too cold in the winter. Everything would freeze.

Yeah it's a good point - maybe we do need insulation, but also some way of bringing in cool air from outside...

If you get below freezing in winter, anything stored in that would freeze. This is why a root cellar works. It's below the frost line. Same with summer. It's deep enough in the soil to be cool. The earth modulates the temperature.

A plain room with no form of technological temperature modulation will always be ambient temperature, whatever that might be. Insulation only works to keep heat from passing through. In a room with no source of heating or cooling, insulation isn't going to do anything. It will equalize to the exterior ambient temperature.

The old Southern homes used "cooling" techniques to let the hot air out of the top of the home and draw "cool" air in from below. But when that cool air is 97° nothing is going to get really cool. It's cooler than the 107° in the sun, but 97° in the shade of the house or underneath the house, is far from cool. And that does nothing for winter.

It sounds like what you are really wanting is a commercial walk in refrigerator. In a standard, well built and well insulated house.

Cool pantries are like Aga ranges. Only designed for locations that 70 is a hot summer day. And 20 is a cold winter day. Maritime climates. Like England and the PNW coastal region.

Design has to be specific to your region and climate. It’s why flat roof adobe houses are not done in cold and snowy New England. But Cape Cods are. And it’s why a swamp cooler will work in Arizona, but be a hopeless misery in Georgia.

I have read a lot about 'larders' which is the British term for these things, and maybe as you note that's why they work in England, b/c the summers don't get too hot. I will look into whether we can do something in the basement instead - thanks for the feedback!