Learn French: Il y a de la farine et du sel dans la cuisine. - There is some flour and some salt in the kitchen.

Farine (flour) is a feminine uncountable noun. You cannot easily count individual grains of flour! In French, when you want to say "some" of a feminine mass noun, you use the partitive article de la.

Why does the word for "some" change to du before sel?

Sel (salt) is a masculine uncountable noun. To say "some" before a masculine word, you need de + le. In French, those two words always combine and squish together to form the single word du.

Since we are talking about two things (flour and salt), why don't we use a plural form of Il y a?

The expression Il y a is incredibly handy because it never changes shape. It translates to both "there is" and "there are". So even when you are listing multiple items, it stays exactly as Il y a.

Why does cuisine just get la instead of de la like the flour?

We use de la and du for the ingredients because we mean "some" flour and "some" salt. However, we are talking about a specific, countable room in the house: "the" kitchen. So we just use the definite article la (the) to say dans la cuisine (in the kitchen).