Kitchen

For other uses, see Kitchen (disambiguation).

An early-20th century Art Nouveau-style kitchen in Riga

A kitchen is a room or part of a room used for cooking and food preparation in a dwelling or in a commercial establishment. A modern middle-class residential kitchen is typically equipped with a stove, a sink with hot and cold running water, a refrigerator, and worktops and kitchen cabinets arranged according to a modular design. Many households have a microwave oven, a dishwasher, and other electric appliances. The main functions of a kitchen are to store, prepare and cook food (and to complete related tasks such as dishwashing). The room or area may also be used for dining (or small meals such as breakfast), entertaining and laundry. The design and construction of kitchens is a huge market all over the world.

Commercial kitchens are found in restaurants, cafeterias, hotels, hospitals, educational and workplace facilities, army barracks, and similar establishments. These kitchens are generally larger and equipped with bigger and more heavy-duty equipment than a residential kitchen. For example, a large restaurant may have a walk-in refrigerator and a large commercial dishwashing machine. In some instances, commercial kitchen equipment such as commercial sinks are used in household settings as they offer ease of use for food preparation and high durability.

In developed countries, commercial kitchens are generally subject to public health laws. They are inspected periodically by public-health officials, and forced to close if they do not meet hygienic requirements mandated by law.

History

Middle Ages

The roasting spit in this European Renaissance kitchen was driven automatically by a propeller—the black cloverleaf-like structure in the upper left

Early medieval European longhouses had an open fire under the highest point of the building. The kitchen area was between the entrance and the fireplace. In wealthy homes, there was typically more than one kitchen. In some homes, there were upwards of three kitchens. The kitchens were divided based on the types of food prepared in them.

The kitchen might be separate from the great hall due to the smoke from cooking fires and the chance the fires may get out of control. Few medieval kitchens survive as they were "notoriously ephemeral structures".

Kitchen interior, c. 1565

Colonial America

In Connecticut, as in other colonies of New England during Colonial America, kitchens were often built as separate rooms and were located behind the parlor and keeping room or dining room. One early record of a kitchen is found in the 1648 inventory of the estate of a John Porter of Windsor, Connecticut. The inventory lists goods in the house "over the kittchin" and "in the kittchin". The items listed in the kitchen were: silver spoons, pewter, brass, iron, arms, ammunition, hemp, flax and "other implements about the room".

Technological developments such as the Rumford roaster and the kitchen range enabled more efficient use of space and fuel.

Rationalization

A stepping stone to the modern fitted kitchen was the Frankfurt Kitchen, designed by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky for social housing projects in 1926. This kitchen measured 1.9 by 3.4 metres (6 ft 3 in by 11 ft 2 in), and was built to optimize kitchen efficiency and lower building costs. The design was the result of detailed time-motion studies and interviews with future tenants to identify what they needed from their kitchens. Schütte-Lihotzky's fitted kitchen was built in some 10,000 apartments in housing projects erected in Frankfurt, Germany in the 1930s.

Domestic kitchen planning

Beecher's "model kitchen" brought early ergonomic principles to the home

The Frankfurt kitchen using Taylorist principles

Christine Frederick published from 1913 a series of articles on "New Household Management" in which she analyzed the kitchen following Taylorist principles of efficiency, presented detailed time-motion studies, and derived a kitchen design from them. Her ideas were taken up in the 1920s by architects in Germany and Austria, most notably Bruno Taut, Erna Meyer, Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky and Benita Otte, who designed the first fitted kitchen for the Haus am Horn, which was completed in 1923.

A block kitchen

Other types

A canteen kitchen

A food technology training kitchen of Marling School in the United Kingdom

The fast food and convenience food trends have changed the manner in which restaurant kitchens operate. Some of these type restaurants may only "finish" convenience food that is delivered to them or just reheat completely prepared meals. At the most they may grill a hamburger or a steak. But in the early 21st century, c-stores (convenience stores) are attracting greater market share by performing more food preparation on-site and better customer service than some fast food outlets.

By region

A traditional 1920s Shanghainese shikumen style kitchen, Shikumen Open House Museum

Reconstruction of a 1832 Japanese kitchen in Dejima, Nagasaki, Japan.

India

Preparation of bread in the kitchen of Gurudwara Bangla Sahib in New Delhi, India

While many kitchens belonging to poor families continue to use clay stoves and the older forms of fuel, the urban middle and upper classes usually have gas stoves with cylinders or piped gas attached. Electric cooktops are rarer since they consume a great deal of electricity, but microwave ovens are gaining popularity in urban households and commercial enterprises. Indian kitchens are also supported by biogas and solar energy as fuel. World's largest solar energy kitchen is built in India. In association with government bodies, India is encouraging domestic biogas plants to support the kitchen system.

Outdoor kitchen in Takoradi, Ghana

See also

• Cooking techniques
• Cuisine
• Dirty kitchen
• Hearth
• Hoosier cabinet
• Kitchen utensil
• Kitchen ventilation
• Universal design

Further reading

• Beecher, C. E. and Beecher Stowe, H.: The American Woman's Home, 1869. The American Woman's Home
• Cahill, Nicolas. Household and City Organization at Olynthus ISBN 0-300-08495-1
• Cromley, Elizabeth Collins. The Food Axis: Cooking, Eating, and the Architecture of American Houses (University of Virginia Press; 2011); 288 pages; Explores the history of American houses through a focus on spaces for food preparation, cooking, consumption, and disposal.
• Harrison, M.: The Kitchen in History, Osprey; 1972; ISBN 0-85045-068-3
• Kinchin, Juliet and Aidan O'Connor, Counter Space: Design and the Modern Kitchen (MoMA: New York, 2011)
• Lupton, E. and Miller, J. A.: The Bathroom, the Kitchen, and the Aesthetics of Waste, Princeton Architectural Press; 1996; ISBN 1-56898-096-5. The Bathroom, the Kitchen and the Aesthetics of Waste
• Snodgrass, M. E.: Encyclopedia of Kitchen History; Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers; (November 2004); ISBN 1-57958-380-6

External links

Media related to Kitchens at Wikimedia Commons

• Photo History of the Kitchen 1860–1960