Kitchen

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.

An early-20th century Art Nouveau-style

kitchen in Riga

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 huge walk-in refrigerator and a large commercial
dishwasher machine. In some instances, commercial kitchen equipment such as commercial
sinks is used in household settings as it offers ease of use for food preparation and high
durability.[1][2]
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.[3]

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.[4] Few medieval kitchens survive as they were
"notoriously ephemeral structures".[5]
 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".[6]

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 in the 1930s.[7]

Materials
The Frankfurt Kitchen of 1926 was made of several materials depending on the application. The
modern built-in kitchens of today use particle boards or MDF, decorated with a variety of
materials and finishes including wood veneers, lacquer, glass, melamine, laminate, ceramic and
eco gloss. Very few manufacturers produce home built-in kitchens from stainless steel. Until the
1950s, steel kitchens were used by architects, but this material was displaced by the cheaper
particle board panels sometimes decorated with a steel surface.

Domestic kitchen planning

Beecher's "model kitchen" brought

early ergonomic principles to the
home

The Frankfurt kitchen using Taylorist

principles
Domestic (or residential) kitchen design is a relatively recent discipline. The first ideas to
optimize the work in the kitchen go back to Catharine Beecher's A Treatise on Domestic Economy
(1843, revised and republished together with her sister Harriet Beecher Stowe as The American
Woman's Home in 1869). Beecher's "model kitchen" propagated for the first time a systematic
design based on early ergonomics. The design included regular shelves on the walls, ample
workspace, and dedicated storage areas for various food items. Beecher even separated the
functions of preparing food and cooking it altogether by moving the stove into a compartment
adjacent to the kitchen.

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.[8] Similar design principles were employed by Schütte-Lihotzky
for her famous Frankfurt kitchen, designed for Ernst May's Römerstadt, a social housing project
in Frankfurt, in 1927.

While this "work kitchen" and variants derived from it were a great success for tenement
buildings, homeowners had different demands and did not want to be constrained by a 6.4-
square-metre (69 sq ft) kitchen. Nevertheless, the kitchen design was mostly ad-hoc following
the whims of the architect. In the U.S., the "Small Homes Council", since 1993 the "Building
Research Council", of the School of Architecture of the University of Illinois at Urbana–
Champaign was founded in 1944 with the goal to improve the state of the art in home building,
originally with an emphasis on standardization for cost reduction. It was there that the notion of
the kitchen work triangle was formalized: the three main functions in a kitchen are storage,
preparation, and cooking (which Catharine Beecher had already recognized), and the places for
these functions should be arranged in the kitchen in such a way that work at one place does not
interfere with work at another place, the distance between these places is not unnecessarily
large, and no obstacles are in the way. A natural arrangement is a triangle, with the refrigerator,
the sink, and the stove at a vertex each.

This observation led to a few common kitchen forms, commonly characterized by the
arrangement of the kitchen cabinets and sink, stove, and refrigerator:

A single-file kitchen (also known as a

one-way galley or a straight-line kitchen)
has all of these along one wall; the work
triangle degenerates to a line. This is not
optimal, but often the only solution if
space is restricted. This may be
common in an attic space that is being
converted into a living space, or a studio
apartment.
The double-file kitchen (or two-way
galley) has two rows of cabinets on
opposite walls, one containing the stove
and the sink, the other the refrigerator.
This is the classical work kitchen and
makes efficient use of space.
In the L-kitchen, the cabinets occupy two
adjacent walls. Again, the work triangle
is preserved, and there may even be
space for an additional table at a third
wall, provided it does not intersect the
triangle.
A U-kitchen has cabinets along three
walls, typically with the sink at the base
of the "U". This is a typical work kitchen,
too, unless the two other cabinet rows
are short enough to place a table on the
fourth wall.
A G-kitchen has cabinets along three
walls, like the U-kitchen, and also a
partial fourth wall, often with a double
basin sink at the corner of the G shape.
The G-kitchen provides additional work
and storage space and can support two
work triangles. A modified version of the
G-kitchen is the double-L, which splits
the G into two L-shaped components,
essentially adding a smaller L-shaped
island or peninsula to the L-kitchen.

A block kitchen

The block kitchen (or island) is a more

recent development, typically found in
open kitchens. Here, the stove or both
the stove and the sink are placed where
an L or U kitchen would have a table, in a
free-standing "island", separated from
 the other cabinets. In a closed room,
this does not make much sense, but in
an open kitchen, it makes the stove
accessible from all sides such that two
persons can cook together, and allows
for contact with guests or the rest of the
family since the cook does not face the
wall any more. Additionally, the kitchen
island's counter-top can function as an
overflow surface for serving buffet-style
meals or sitting down to eat breakfast
and snacks.
In the 1980s, there was a backlash against industrial kitchen planning and cabinets with people
installing a mix of work surfaces and free standing furniture, led by kitchen designer Johnny
Grey and his concept of the "unfitted kitchen". Modern kitchens often have enough informal
space to allow for people to eat in it without having to use the formal dining room. Such areas
are called "breakfast areas", "breakfast nooks" or "breakfast bars" if space is integrated into a
kitchen counter. Kitchens with enough space to eat in are sometimes called "eat-in kitchens".
During the 2000s, flat pack kitchens were popular for people doing DIY renovating on a budget.
The flat pack kitchens industry makes it easy to put together and mix and matching doors,
bench tops and cabinets. In flat pack systems, many components can be interchanged.
In larger homes, where the owners might have meals prepared by a household staff member, the
home may have a chef's kitchen. This typically differs from a normal domestic kitchen by having
multiple ovens (possibly of different kinds for different kinds of cooking), multiple sinks, and
warming drawers to keep food heated between cooking and service.

Other types

A canteen kitchen

A food technology training kitchen of

Marling School in the United Kingdom

Restaurant and canteen kitchens found in hotels, hospitals, educational and workplace facilities,
army barracks, and similar institutions are generally (in developed countries) 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.

Canteen kitchens (and castle kitchens) were often the places where new technology was used
first. For instance, Benjamin Thompson's "energy saving stove", an early 19th-century fully closed
iron stove using one fire to heat several pots, was designed for large kitchens; another thirty
years passed before they were adapted for domestic use.
As of 2017, restaurant kitchens usually have tiled walls and floors and use stainless steel for
other surfaces (workbench, but also door and drawer fronts) because these materials are
durable and easy to clean. Professional kitchens are often equipped with gas stoves, as these
allow cooks to regulate the heat more quickly and more finely than electrical stoves. Some
special appliances are typical for professional kitchens, such as large installed deep fryers,
steamers, or a bain-marie.

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.[9]

The kitchens in railway dining cars have presented special challenges: space is limited, and,
personnel must be able to serve a great number of meals quickly. Especially in the early history
of railways, this required flawless organization of processes; in modern times, the microwave
oven and prepared meals have made this task much easier. Kitchens aboard ships, aircraft and
sometimes railcars are often referred to as galleys. On yachts, galleys are often cramped, with
one or two burners fueled by an LP gas bottle. Kitchens on cruise ships or large warships, by
contrast, are comparable in every respect with restaurants or canteen kitchens.

On passenger airliners, the kitchen is reduced to a pantry. The crew's role is to heat and serve in-
flight meals delivered by a catering company. An extreme form of the kitchen occurs in space,
e.g., aboard a Space Shuttle (where it is also called the "galley") or the International Space
Station. The astronauts' food is generally completely prepared, dehydrated, and sealed in plastic
pouches before the flight. The kitchen is reduced to a rehydration and heating module.

Outdoor areas where food is prepared are generally not considered kitchens, even though an
outdoor area set up for regular food preparation, for instance when camping, might be referred
to as an "outdoor kitchen". An outdoor kitchen at a campsite might be placed near a well, water
pump, or water tap, and it might provide tables for food preparation and cooking (using portable
camp stoves). Some campsite kitchen areas have a large tank of propane connected to burners
so that campers can cook their meals. Military camps and similar temporary settlements of
nomads may have dedicated kitchen tents, which have a vent to enable cooking smoke to
escape.

In schools where home economics, food technology (previously known as "domestic science"),
or culinary arts are taught, there are typically a series of kitchens with multiple equipment
(similar in some respects to laboratories) solely for the purpose of teaching. These consist of
multiple workstations, each with its own oven, sink, and kitchen utensils, where the teacher can
show students how to prepare food and cook it.

By region

China

A traditional 1920s Shanghainese

shikumen style kitchen, Shikumen Open
House Museum

Kitchens in China are called chúfáng( 厨房). More than 3000 years ago, the ancient Chinese used
the ding for cooking food. The ding was developed into the wok and pot used today. In Chinese
spiritual tradition, a Kitchen God watches over the kitchen for the family and reports to the Jade
Emperor annually about the family's behavior. On Chinese New Year's Eve, families would gather
to pray for the kitchen god to give a good report to heaven and wish him to bring back good
news on the fifth day of the New Year.

The most common cooking equipment in Chinese family kitchens and restaurant kitchens are
woks, steamer baskets and pots. The fuel or heating resource was also an important technique
to practice the cooking skills. Traditionally Chinese were using wood or straw as the fuel to cook
food. A Chinese chef had to master flaming and heat radiation to reliably prepare traditional
recipes. Chinese cooking will use a pot or wok for pan-frying, stir-frying, deep frying or boiling.
Japan

Reconstruction of a 1832 Japanese

kitchen in Dejima, Nagasaki, Japan.

Kitchens in Japan are called Daidokoro (台所; lit. "kitchen"). Daidokoro is the place where food is
prepared in a Japanese house. Until the Meiji era, a kitchen was also called kamado (かまど; lit.
stove) and there are many sayings in the Japanese language that involve kamado as it was
considered the symbol of a house and the term could even be used to mean "family" or
"household" (similar to the English word "hearth"). When separating a family, it was called
Kamado wo wakeru, which means "divide the stove". Kamado wo yaburu (lit. "break the stove")
means that the family was bankrupt.

India

Preparation of bread in the kitchen of

Gurudwara Bangla Sahib in New Delhi,
India
In India, a kitchen is called a "Rasoi" (in Hindi\Sanskrit) or a "Swayampak ghar" in Marathi, and
there exist many other names for it in the various regional languages. Many different methods of
cooking exist across the country, and the structure and the materials used in constructing
kitchens have varied depending on the region. For example, in the north and central India,
cooking used to be carried out in clay ovens called "chulha" (also chullha or chullah), fired by
wood, coal or dried cow dung. In households where members observed vegetarianism, separate
kitchens were maintained to cook and store vegetarian and non-vegetarian food. Religious
families often treat the kitchen as a sacred space. Indian kitchens are built on an Indian
architectural science called vastushastra. The Indian kitchen vastu is of utmost importance
while designing kitchens in India. Modern-day architects also follow the norms of vastushastra
while designing Indian kitchens across the world.

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[10]
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 Cooking

portal
Cuisine
 Dirty kitchen Food
portal
Hearth
Wikimedia
Hoosier cabinet Commons
has media
Kitchen utensil related to
Kitchens.
Kitchen ventilation
Universal design

References

1. "The Pros and Cons of Using A Commercial

Sink at Home – Home Decor Expert and" (h
ttps://web.archive.org/web/201903300227
33/https://www.homedecorexpert.com/the-
pros-and-cons-of-using-a-commercial-sink-
at-home.html) . Home Decor Expert. 2018-
06-14. Archived from the original (http://ww
 w.homedecorexpert.com/the-pros-and-con
s-of-using-a-commercial-sink-at-home.htm
l) on 2019-03-30. Retrieved 2018-07-22.

2. Vogel, Carol (1982-12-09). "The commercial

kitchen at home: pros and cons" (https://w
ww.nytimes.com/1982/12/09/garden/the-c
ommercial-kitchen-at-home-pros-and-cons-
by-carol-vogel.html) . The New York Times.

3. Thompson, Theodor (1992) Medieval

Homes, Sampson Lowel House
4. Christie, Neil; Creighton, Oliver; Edgeworth,
Matt; Hamerow, Helena (2013),
Transforming Townscapes: From burgh to
borough: the archaeology of Wallingford,
AD 800–1400, The Society for Medieval
Archaeology Monograph Series, Oxford:
Society for Medieval Archaeology, p. 201,
ISBN 978-1-909662-09-4

5. Creighton, Oliver; Christie, Neil (2015), "The

Archaeology of Wallingford Castle: a
summary of the current state of
knowledge", in Keats-Rohan, K. S. B.;
Christie, Neil; Roffe, David (eds.),
Wallingford: The Castle and the Town in
Context, BAR British Series, Oxford:
Archaeopress, p. 13, ISBN 978-1-4073-
1418-1
6. Trumbull, J. Hammond (1850). The Public
Records of the Colony of Connecticut
1636–1776 (https://archive.org/stream/pu
blicrecordsofc001conn#page/476/mode/2
up) . Vol. 1. Hartford, Brown & Parsons.
p. 476.

7. Rawsthorn, Alice (2010-09-27) Modernist

triumph in the kitchen (https://www.nytime
s.com/2010/09/27/arts/27iht-design27.ht
ml) . New York Times

8. Moore, Rowan (2019-01-21). "Bauhaus at

100: its legacy in five key designs" (https://
www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/galler
y/2019/jan/21/bauhaus-at-100-its-legacy-in
-five-key-designs) . The Guardian. Retrieved
2019-01-21.
 9. Blank, Christine (9 January 2014). "C-Stores
Eating Your Lunch" (https://www.qsrmagazi
ne.com/exclusives/c-stores-eating-your-lun
ch) . QSR Magazine.

10. "World's Largest 38500-meal Solar Kitchen

in India" (https://web.archive.org/web/2019
0330022720/https://inhabitat.com/world%
E2%80%99s-largest-solar-kitchen-in-india-c
an-cook-upto-38500-meals-per-day/) .
Archived from the original (http://inhabitat.
com/world%E2%80%99s-largest-solar-kitch
en-in-india-can-cook-upto-38500-meals-per-
day/) on 2019-03-30. Retrieved
2017-03-17.
Further reading

Beecher, C. E. and Beecher Stowe, H.:

The American Woman's Home, 1869. The
American Woman's Home (http://online
books.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutboo
k/lookup?num=6598)
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 (http://www.elu
pton.com/index.php?id=41)
 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

(http://oldphotoarchive.com/stories/hist
ory-evolution-of-kitchen-vintage-old-phot
os)

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