Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Kitchens And Their Importance In The Home

By Matthew Kerridge

Nowadays, no home is complete without the presence of at least a rudimentary kitchen. These versatile and very utilitarian and functional rooms have a history of extreme length and they got their start when the first humans set aside an area for a campfire and the cooking for food over that open fire. Since then, the vital nature of kitchens in the home today is more widely known than ever.

Most historians and scholars who have studied the development of home technologies trace the advent of the kitchen to the concurrent development of the cook stove or range. Additionally, kitchens became far more available when sufficient plumbing capabilities existed to bring running water to the home came into widespread use. Still, food was cooked over an open fire at least until the'th century.

It was in the'th and'th centuries in the West that people began to look at the open fire over which most food was heated and prepared as less than adequate. As a result, engineers and others began to study the problem and also started applying solutions to the need to improve the cook stove and range. This allowed the stove to be brought into the home along with plumbing to create the modern kitchen.

Even though we look at kitchens today as almost an afterthought when thinking about where they came from, history reveals that even the ancient Greeks had areas in their homes that they considered to be kitchens. Wealthy Greeks of the day actually had a separate room where food was prepared. They were usually located next to a water closet or bathroom so that both could share a common fire.

The Romans, as efficient as ever, arranged for large public kitchens to be built so that their common citizenry could take advantage of food heating technologies of the day. Wealthy Romans, just like wealthy Greeks, often had a very well-equipped kitchen. Roman villas often featured separate rooms where a fireplace was kept constantly lit and food heated up and prepared over it.

Pioneers in colonial America often would mark off a separate area in their cabins that they would refer to as the dining room or kitchen. Normally, the area was close to the fireplace where an open fire was kept burning to cook food and heat the cabin itself. It was some time before the classic kitchen developed and was placed into its own separate area of the home.

In the West, the rise of the kitchen can be directly attributed to the Industrial Revolution. This exciting era of invention and innovation impacted stoves and ranges in a positive way such that these new and modernized home appliances could actually be located in the home itself, often in a separate room that was equipped with running water and other conveniences.

In the modern day that we live in, there seems to be a limitless variation in the ways and methods that kitchens can be built. Nowadays, they range in size from very small and equipped with a basic stove, refrigerator and sink all the way up to rooms in the home that often are larger than the total living area of a colonial American cabin or home itself.

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