I thought Robert Day pointed this out, but i cannot find the mail in the archives..
create a known starting point.
Other starting configurations (mostly used for testing purposes) include
-"make allbaseconfig" (enables all applets but disables all optional features),
+"make allbareconfig" (enables all applets but disables all optional features),
"make allyesconfig" (enables absolutely everything including debug features),
and "make randconfig" (produce a random configuration).