text:
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 huge walk-in refrigerator and a large commercial dishwasher machine. In some instances commercial kitchen equipment such as commercial sinks are 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.[citation needed]
The evolution of the kitchen is linked to the invention of the cooking range or stove and the development of water infrastructure capable of supplying running water to private homes. Food was cooked over an open fire. Technical advances in heating food in the 18th and 19th centuries changed the architecture of the kitchen. Before the advent of modern pipes, water was brought from an outdoor source such as wells, pumps or springs.
The houses in Ancient Greece were commonly of the atrium-type: the rooms were arranged around a central courtyard for women. In many such homes, a covered but otherwise open patio served as the kitchen. Homes of the wealthy had the kitchen as a separate room, usually next to a bathroom (so that both rooms could be heated by the kitchen fire), both rooms being accessible from the court. In such houses, there was often a separate small storage room in the back of the kitchen used for storing food and kitchen utensils.
In the Roman Empire, common folk in cities often had no kitchen of their own; they did their cooking in large public kitchens. Some had small mobile bronze stoves, on which a fire could be lit for cooking. Wealthy Romans had relatively well-equipped kitchens. In a Roman villa, the kitchen was typically integrated into the main building as a separate room, set apart for practical reasons of smoke and sociological reasons of the kitchen being operated by slaves. The fireplace was typically on the floor, placed at a wall—sometimes raised a little bit—such that one had to kneel to cook. There were no chimneys.
Middle Ages
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] In place of a chimney, these early buildings had a hole in the roof through which some of the smoke could escape. Besides cooking, the fire also served as a source of heat and light to the single-room building. A similar design can be found in the Iroquois longhouses of North America.
In the larger homesteads of European nobles, the kitchen was sometimes in a separate sunken floor building to keep the main building, which served social and official purposes, free from indoor smoke.
The first known stoves in Japan date from about the same time. The earliest findings are from the Kofun period (3rd to 6th century). These stoves, called kamado, were typically made of clay and mortar; they were fired with wood or charcoal through a hole in the front and had a hole in the top, into which a pot could be hanged by its rim. This type of stove remained in use for centuries to come, with only minor modifications. Like in Europe, the wealthier homes had a separate building which served for cooking. A kind of open fire pit fired with charcoal, called irori, remained in use as the secondary stove in most homes until the Edo period (17th to 19th century). A kamado was used to cook the staple food, for instance rice, while irori served both to cook side dishes and as a heat source.
The kitchen remained largely unaffected by architectural advances throughout the Middle Ages; open fire remained the only method of heating food. European medieval kitchens were dark, smoky, and sooty places, whence their name "smoke kitchen". In European medieval cities around the 10th to 12th centuries, the kitchen still used an open fire hearth in the middle of the room. In wealthy homes, the ground floor was often used as a stable while the kitchen was located on the floor above, like the bedroom and the hall. In castles and monasteries, the living and working areas were separated; the kitchen was sometimes moved to a separate building, and thus could not serve anymore to heat the living rooms. In some castles the kitchen was retained in the same structure, but servants were strictly separated from nobles, by constructing separate spiral stone staircases for use of servants to bring food to upper levels.[citation needed] 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] An extant example of such a medieval kitchen with servants' staircase is at Muchalls Castle in Scotland. In Japanese homes, the kitchen started to become a separate room within the main building at that time.
With the advent of the chimney, the hearth moved from the center of the room to one wall, and the first brick-and-mortar hearths were built. The fire was lit on top of the construction; a vault underneath served to store wood. Pots made of iron, bronze, or copper started to replace the pottery used earlier. The temperature was controlled by hanging the pot higher or lower over the fire, or placing it on a trivet or directly on the hot ashes. Using open fire for cooking (and heating) was risky; fires devastating whole cities occurred frequently.
Leonardo da Vinci invented an automated system for a rotating spit for spit-roasting: a propeller in the chimney made the spit turn all by itself. This kind of system was widely used in wealthier homes. Beginning in the late Middle Ages, kitchens in Europe lost their home-heating function even more and were increasingly moved from the living area into a separate room. The living room was now heated by cocklestoves, operated from the kitchen, which offered the huge advantage of not filling the room with smoke.
Freed from smoke and dirt, the living room thus began to serve as an area for social functions and increasingly became a showcase for the owner's wealth. In the upper classes, cooking and the kitchen were the domain of the servants, and the kitchen was set apart from the living rooms, sometimes even far from the dining room. Poorer homes often did not yet have a separate kitchen; they kept the one-room arrangement where all activities took place, or at the most had the kitchen in the entrance hall.
The medieval smoke kitchen (or Farmhouse kitchen) remained common, especially in rural farmhouses and generally in poorer homes, until much later. In a few European farmhouses, the smoke kitchen was in regular use until the middle of the 20th century. These houses often had no chimney, but only a smoke hood above the fireplace, made of wood and covered with clay, used to smoke meat. The smoke rose more or less freely, warming the upstairs rooms and protecting the woodwork from vermin.
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] Separate summer kitchens were also common on large farms in the north; these were used to prepare meals for harvest workers and tasks such as canning during the warm summer months, to keep the heat out of the main house.
In the southern states, where the climate and sociological conditions differed from the north, the kitchen was often relegated to an outbuilding. On plantations, it was separate from the big house or mansion in much the same way as the feudal kitchen in medieval Europe: the kitchen was operated by slaves in the antebellum years. Their working place was separated from the living area of the masters by the social standards, but more importantly, it was a means to reduce the chance of fire in the main house from kitchen operations.
Technological advances
Technological advances during industrialisation brought major changes to the kitchen. Iron stoves, which enclosed the fire completely and were more efficient, appeared. Early models included the Franklin stove around 1740, which was a furnace stove intended for heating, not for cooking. Benjamin Thompson in England designed his "Rumford stove" around 1800. This stove was much more energy efficient than earlier stoves; it used one fire to heat several pots, which were hung into holes on top of the stove and were thus heated from all sides instead of just from the bottom. However, his stove was designed for large kitchens; it was too big for domestic use. The "Oberlin stove" was a refinement of the technique that resulted in a size reduction; it was patented in the U.S. in 1834 and became a commercial success with some 90,000 units sold over the next 30 years. These stoves were still fired with wood or coal. Although the first gas street lamps were installed in Paris, London, and Berlin at the beginning of the 1820s and the first U.S. patent on a gas stove was granted in 1825, it was not until the late 19th century that using gas for lighting and cooking became commonplace in urban areas.
Before and after the beginning of the 20th century, kitchens were frequently not equipped with built-in cabinetry, and the lack of storage space in the kitchen became a real problem. The Hoosier Manufacturing Co. of Indiana adapted an existing furniture piece, the baker's cabinet, which had a similar structure of a table top with some cabinets above it (and frequently flour bins beneath) to solve the storage problem. By rearranging the parts and taking advantage of (then) modern metal working, they were able to produce a well-organized, compact cabinet which answered the home cook's needs for storage and working space. A distinctive feature of the Hoosier cabinet is its accessories. As originally supplied, they were equipped with various racks and other hardware to hold and organize spices and various staples. One useful feature was the combination flour-bin/sifter, a tin hopper that could be used without having to remove it from the cabinet. A similar sugar bin was also common.
The urbanization in the second half of the 19th century induced other significant changes that would ultimately change the kitchen. Out of sheer necessity, cities began planning and building water distribution pipes into homes, and built sewers to deal with the waste water. Gas pipes were laid; gas was used first for lighting purposes, but once the network had grown sufficiently, it also became available for heating and cooking on gas stoves. At the turn of the 20th century, electricity had been mastered well enough to become a commercially viable alternative to gas and slowly started replacing the latter. But like the gas stove, the electric stove had a slow start. The first electrical stove had been presented in 1893 at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, but it was not until the 1930s that the technology was stable enough and began to take off.
Industrialization also caused social changes. The new factory working class in the cities was housed under generally poor conditions. Whole families lived in small one or two-room apartments in tenement buildings up to six stories high, badly aired and with insufficient lighting. Sometimes, they shared apartments with "night sleepers", unmarried men who paid for a bed at night. The kitchen in such an apartment was often used as a living and sleeping room, and even as a bathroom. Water had to be fetched from wells and heated on the stove. Water pipes were laid only towards the end of the 19th century, and then often only with one tap per building or per story. Brick-and-mortar stoves fired with coal remained the norm until well into the second half of the century. Pots and kitchenware were typically stored on open shelves, and parts of the room could be separated from the rest using simple curtains.
In contrast, there were no dramatic changes for the upper classes. The kitchen, located in the basement or the ground floor, continued to be operated by servants. In some houses, water pumps were installed, and some even had kitchen sinks and drains (but no water on tap yet, except for some feudal kitchens in castles). The kitchen became a much cleaner space with the advent of "cooking machines", closed stoves made of iron plates and fired by wood and increasingly charcoal or coal, and that had flue pipes connected to the chimney. For the servants the kitchen continued to also serve as a sleeping room; they slept either on the floor, or later in narrow spaces above a lowered ceiling, for the new stoves with their smoke outlet no longer required a high ceiling in the kitchen. The kitchen floors were tiled; kitchenware was neatly stored in cupboards to protect them from dust and steam. A large table served as a workbench; there were at least as many chairs as there were servants, for the table in the kitchen also doubled as the eating place for the servants.
World War II cooking and dining trends
The urban middle class imitated the luxurious dining styles of the upper class as best as they could. Living in smaller apartments, the kitchen was the main room—here, the family lived. The study or living room was saved for special occasions such as an occasional dinner invitation. Because of this, these middle-class kitchens were often more homely than those of the upper class, where the kitchen was a work-only room occupied only by the servants. Besides a cupboard to store the kitchenware, there were a table and chairs, where the family would dine, and sometimes—if space allowed—even a fauteuil or a couch.
Gas pipes were first laid in the late 19th century, and gas stoves started to replace the older coal-fired stoves. Gas was more expensive than coal, though, and thus the new technology was first installed in the wealthier homes. Where workers' apartments were equipped with a gas stove, gas distribution would go through a coin meter.
In rural areas, the older technology using coal or wood stoves or even brick-and-mortar open fireplaces remained common throughout. Gas and water pipes were first installed in the big cities; small villages were connected only much later.
The trend to increasing gasification and electrification continued at the turn of the 20th century. In industry, it was the phase of work process optimization. Taylorism was born, and time-motion studies were used to optimize processes. These ideas also spilled over into domestic kitchen architecture because of a growing trend that called for a professionalization of household work, started in the mid-19th century by Catharine Beecher and amplified by Christine Frederick's publications in the 1910s.
A stepstone was the kitchen designed in Frankfurt by Margarethe Schütte-Lihotzky. Working-class women frequently worked in factories to ensure the family's survival, as the men's wages often did not suffice. Social housing projects led to the next milestone: the Frankfurt Kitchen. Developed in 1926, this kitchen measured 1.9 m by 3.4 m (approximately 6 ft 2 in by 11 ft 2 in, with a standard layout). It was built for two purposes: to optimize kitchen work to reduce cooking time and lower the cost of building decently equipped kitchens. The design, created by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, 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 the housing projects erected in Frankfurt in the 1930s.[7]
The initial reception was critical: it was so small that only one person could work in it; some storage spaces intended for raw loose food ingredients such as flour were reachable by children. But the Frankfurt kitchen embodied a standard for the rest of the 20th century in rental apartments: the "work kitchen". It was criticized as "exiling the women in the kitchen", but post-World War II economic reasons prevailed. The kitchen once more was seen as a work place that needed to be separated from the living areas. Practical reasons also played a role in this development: just as in the bourgeois homes of the past, one reason for separating the kitchen was to keep the steam and smells of cooking out of the living room.
The idea of standardized was first introduced locally with the Frankfurt kitchen, but later defined new in the "Swedish kitchen" (Svensk köksstandard, Swedish kitchen standard). The equipment used remained a standard for years to come: hot and cold water on tap and a kitchen sink and an electrical or gas stove and oven. Not much later, the refrigerator was added as a standard item. The concept was refined in the "Swedish kitchen" using unit furniture with wooden fronts for the kitchen cabinets. Soon, the concept was amended by the use of smooth synthetic door and drawer fronts, first in white, recalling a sense of cleanliness and alluding to sterile lab or hospital settings, but soon after in more lively colors, too.[citation needed] Some years after the Frankfurt Kitchen, Poggenpohl presented the "reform kitchen" in 1928 with interconnecting cabinets and functional interiors. The reform kitchen was a forerunner to the later unit kitchen and fitted kitchen.
Unit construction since its introduction has defined the development of the modern kitchen. Pre-manufactured modules, using mass manufacturing techniques developed during World War II, greatly brought down the cost of a kitchen. Units which are kept on the floor are called "floor units", "floor cabinets", or "base cabinets" on which a kitchen worktop – originally often formica and often now made of granite, marble, tile or wood – is placed. The units which are held on the wall for storage purposes are termed as "wall units" or "wall cabinets". In small areas of kitchen in an apartment, even a "tall storage unit" is available for effective storage. In cheaper brands, all cabinets are kept a uniform color, normally white, with interchangeable doors and accessories chosen by the customer to give a varied look. In more expensive brands, the cabinets are produced matching the doors' colors and finishes, for an older more bespoke look.
Open kitchens
Starting in the 1980s, the perfection of the extractor hood allowed an open kitchen again, integrated more or less with the living room without causing the whole apartment or house to smell. Before that, only a few earlier experiments, typically in newly built upper-middle-class family homes, had open kitchens. Examples are Frank Lloyd Wright's House Willey (1934) and House Jacobs (1936). Both had open kitchens, with high ceilings (up to the roof) and were aired by skylights. The extractor hood made it possible to build open kitchens in apartments, too, where both high ceilings and skylights were not possible.
The re-integration of the kitchen and the living area went hand in hand with a change in the perception of cooking: increasingly, cooking was seen as a creative and sometimes social act instead of work. And there was a rejection by younger home-owners of the standard suburban model of separate kitchens and dining rooms found in most 1900–1950 houses. Many families also appreciated the trend towards open kitchens, as it made it easier for the parents to supervise the children while cooking and to clean up spills. The enhanced status of cooking also made the kitchen a prestige object for showing off one's wealth or cooking professionalism. Some architects have capitalized on this "object" aspect of the kitchen by designing freestanding "kitchen objects". However, like their precursor, Colani's "kitchen satellite", such futuristic designs are exceptions.
Another reason for the trend back to open kitchens (and a foundation of the "kitchen object" philosophy) is changes in how food is prepared. Whereas prior to the 1950s most cooking started out with raw ingredients and a meal had to be prepared from scratch, the advent of frozen meals and pre-prepared convenience food changed the cooking habits of many people, who consequently used the kitchen less and less. For others, who followed the "cooking as a social act" trend, the open kitchen had the advantage that they could be with their guests while cooking, and for the "creative cooks" it might even become a stage for their cooking performance.
The "Trophy Kitchen" is equipped with very expensive and sophisticated appliances which are used primarily to impress visitors and to project social status, rather than for actual cooking.
The ventilation of a kitchen, in particular a large restaurant kitchen, poses certain difficulties that are not present in the ventilation of other kinds of spaces. In particular, the air in a kitchen differs from that of other rooms in that it typically contains grease, smoke and odours.
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
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 work space, 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, home owners had different demands and did not want to be constrained by a 6.4 m² kitchen. Nevertheless, 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 at 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 at 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.
- 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 the 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.
Other types
Restaurant and canteen kitchens found in hotels, hospitals, educational and work place 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 campstoves). 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
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. Many Chinese people believe that there is a Kitchen God who watches over the kitchen for the family. According to this belief, the god returns to heaven to give a report to the Jade Emperor annually about this family behavior. Every Chinese New Year Eve, families will gather together 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 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.
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.
In India, a kitchen is called a "Rasoi" (in HindiSanskrit) 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 north and central India, cooking used to be carried out in clay ovens called "Chulha"s, fired by wood, coal or dried cowdung. 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 a 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.
See also
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to Kitchens.
- ^ "The Pros and Cons of Using A Commercial Sink at Home – Home Decor Expert and". Home Decor Expert. 2018-06-14. Retrieved 2018-07-22.
- ^ Vogel, Carol (1982-12-09). "The commercial litchen at home: pros and cons". New York Times.
- ^ Thompson, Theodor (1992) Medieval Homes, Sampson Lowel House
- ^ 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
- ^ 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
- ^ Trumbull, J. Hammond (1850). The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut 1636–1776. Vol. 1. p. 476.
- ^ Rawsthorn, Alice (2010-09-27) Modernist triumph in the kitchen. New York Times
- ^ Moore, Rowan (2019-01-21). "Bauhaus at 100: its legacy in five key designs". The Guardian. Retrieved 2019-01-21.
- ^ Blank, Christine (9 January 2014). "C-Stores Eating Your Lunch". QSR Magazine.
- ^ "World's Largest 38500-meal Solar Kitchen in India". Retrieved 2017-03-17.
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


text:
Posted April 04, 2013
I can understand that. And to be honest, I hope the next game (if there is one) is more like the first one, too.
iippo: Whatever the case, i felt AN was huge let down after playing through the original Alan Wake and its bonus episodes. It just felt plain cheap on every level. I DID finish it, as i knew it was short and i had paid for it too ;) ...though i am seriously hoping if there is going to me more Wake, its more in the spirit of the first one (which is not perfect, but did quite much right).
EDIT: Just finished Tiny and Big: Grandpa's Leftovers. My reaction? A big, fat "Meh." The first couple of levels were okay. The mechanics were simple and the puzzles were getting a bit more challenging without being too hard. However, the third level was immensely annoying. The game's controls aren't incredibly precise, and trying to solve simple puzzles while under threat of death was in no way fun. The fourth and fifth levels were drag-- I honestly never knew a 2-hour game could out-stay its welcome. The sixth level wasn't particularly difficult, but its reliance on timing and having to start the whole level over every time I died (in-game, of course) made it almost frustrating.
I won't say the game is, on the whole, bad. The visuals ware nice, as is the music. But ultimately, I didn't really enjoy it. I think it would have been much better with a more expanded story and no death. A simple, visually-pleasing puzzler with great good music and a good story would have been much better.
Post edited April 04, 2013 by Daedalus1138

subset: commoncrawl


text:
It's one of the Internet's best-kept secrets: Vin Diesel has one of the best Facebook pages of all time. He regularly posts a bewildering mixture of selfies, movie promo shots and personal family photos — all of which garner millions of likes and thousands of comments — to his 63 million Facebook fans. Yes, you read that number right: Vin Diesel has the 15th most popular page on Facebook. That means he has more fans than Beyoncé, Justin Bieber, Family Guy, Taylor Swift and a host of other big names.
Earlier today he posted a stunning example of what makes his page so great. Here's what we learned from the seven-minute video.
1) Some people still use iMovie. Diesel's a big fan of cuts, even though this video is ostensibly meant to seem off the cuff. Make sure you watch until the very end or you'll miss the his text message of "All is love…" floating across the screen.
2) He has a penchant for posting videos of himself performing female singer's song. In the past he's warbled a mean — and surprisingly heartfelt — karaoke rendition of Rihanna's Stay.
3) Some people still buy DVDs. At least according to Vin Diesel. At the 3:24 mark, Diesel reveals that the whole reason for this delightful video is that Riddick — the third film in the Pitch Black series that holds a special place in Diesel's heart for a number of reasons — is number one on the DVD charts. Apparently these charts are still a thing. Who knew?
4) He's really, really into Juicy J's verse on Katy Perry's Dark Horse. He rewinds that section at least five times so he can headbang, dance with his fingers in the air and stare pensively out the window while muttering along to the music
5) His teeth are very straight and shiny.
6) What the serfbort dance move looks like. Click forward to 4:51 to watch him dance his heart out to Drunk in Love. If you're curious, know that the proper version of this dance involves claps, snaps, spins, lots of shouting "oh oh oh!" and an attempt to "grain it on that wood." Beyoncé would be proud.
[h/t Digg]
- The Man Who Thinks He Can Live Forever
- How a Government Shutdown Could Affect You
- The Threat to Louisiana's Drinking Water
- Colleges Get Creative to Boost Mental Health
- How Russia Is Recruiting Cubans to Fight in Ukraine
- Paul Hollywood Answers All of Your Questions About The Great British Baking Show
- How Canada and India's Relationship Crumbled
- Want Weekly Recs on What to Watch, Read, and More? Sign Up for Worth Your Time


text:
Weight Loss Tips That You Will Love
Some people can be embarrassed when they start losing weight. They can think that they are too big or too small to ask for the help they need. That's why the internet is such a great resource for people losing weight. If you need help losing weight, have a look at these great tips to start you off.
In order to prevent sabotaging your weight-loss efforts and to help with chocolate cravings, keep fat-free chocolate products handy. When you feel a craving for chocolate, try consuming some fat-free hot cocoa or fat-free and sugar-free chocolate pudding, for example. You will satisfy the craving, but won't ruin your weight-loss progress in doing so.
Encourage your significant other to lose weight with you. Even if they do not need to lose weight, you can still get them to try your new diet. This will make things easier and cheaper for the both of you if you can eat the same things. Seeing your significant other share your diet will help you stay motivated.
It is important to take baby steps when trying to lose weight. Losing weight is not an all-or-nothing situation. It is important to remember that you are trying to make life changes not instant changes. Starting small will give you the ability to learn how to fit the diet and weight loss regimen into your life.
An all-natural diet does not have to be your goal, but eating fresh fruits and vegetables is certainly preferable if you're really serious about making a lifestyle change. Your diet shouldn't only be about losing weight; it should also be about getting in shape and staying as healthy as possible.
To suppress your appetite naturally, drink green tea. Green tea has a long history of being used for appetite suppression. Studies show that it can help hunger pangs subside, and that drinking it regularly can lead to less snacking. Start your day off with a cup of green tea, and you may be surprised at how much less you eat!
A great weight loss tip is to avoid drinking sodas or other sugary drinks. These can add hundreds of calories to your diet on a daily basis that you do not need. Instead, switch to water. You'll be saving yourself hundreds of calories per day, and you will begin to drop the pounds like crazy.
If you are at a loss how to restructure your existing habits, consider hiring a professional to guide you. There are services in which professionals can provide individuals with grocery lists, weekly recipes or other regular guidance and advice. This takes the brunt of the work off of you and allow you to focus more on sticking to your goals!
These weight loss tips are sure to kickstart your weight loss if you commit to them. When you're comfortable with these tips, add on more as you go along. Weight loss doesn't happen overnight, but once you start seeing results you'll be inspired to stick with it and lose even more weight.


text:
0 προϊόν(τα) - 0,00€
The only wayDetective Alex Cross is one of the first on the scene of the biggest case he's ever been part of. The President's son and daughter have been abducted from their school - an impossible crime, but somehow the kidnapper has done it. Alex does everything he can but is shunted to the fringes of the investigation. Someone powerful doesn't want Cross too close.To stop Alex CrossA deadly contagion in the DC water supply threatens to cripple the capital, and Alex sees the looming shape of the most devastating attack the United States has ever experienced. He is already working flat-out on the abduction, and this massive assault pushes Cross completely over the edge.Is to kill himWith each hour that passes, the chance of finding the children alive diminishes. In an emotional private meeting, the First Lady asks Alex to please save her kids. Even the highest security clearance doesn't get him any closer to the kidnapper - and Alex makes a desperate decision that goes against everything he believes. A full-throttle thriller with unstoppable action, unrestrained emotion, and relentless suspense, Kill Alex Cross is the most gripping Alex Cross novel James Patterson has ever written.


text:
A look at the adolescent world as well as the "discipleship" process we bring kids through and ask the tough questions... that maybe the church is afraid to ask. Part 4 of a 6-part series.
This presentation has been viewed 17223 times since it was published on August 28, 2006.


text:
NEW ORLEANS — When a group of Mid-City residents proposed opening a school four years ago that would be racially and economically diverse, they were greeted with doubt. Skeptics thought Morris Jeff would end up like most other public schools in the city: almost entirely African American and low-income.
"The understanding (was) that you guys are delusional. Once the school is open (it) will look the same way that all public schools who are open access look," said Celeste Lofton-Bagert, one of the founders.
Listen to an audio version of the story:
Today, however, a small, but growing number of charter schools are challenging that skepticism — and proving it wrong. At Morris Jeff, now in its fourth year, 60 percent of the students qualify for free or reduced lunch, just over half are African-American, and 42 percent are white. That's not too different from the city as a whole. And this school year, two other new charter schools with similarly diverse demographics opened: Homer A. Plessy in the 9th Ward and Bricolage Academy Uptown.
For decades, New Orleans has had a small number of relatively diverse public schools, but most of them have at least some form of admissions criteria. What separates these new charters is that they strive to be both diverse and open to all. Students do not have to take a standardized test, for instance, to get in.
Across the country, the number of charter schools that are diverse by design has been steadily rising in recent years, in cities including New York, Denver, and Washington D.C. Scholars at the Century Foundation in Washington D.C., a nonpartisan research organization, estimate that about two dozen such charters have opened in recent years although they still comprise only a tiny fraction of charter schools.
"To me it's a wonderful development," said Richard Kahlenberg, who studies school integration at the Century Foundation. "It's the old common school ideal…that you have students from all different backgrounds coming together and learning what it means to be an American."
So far, the charter school movement has not been known for fostering school integration. Some experts, including those at UCLA's Civil Rights Project, have found that charter schools are more segregated overall than traditional schools.
There are several reasons for the new trend toward diversity. Research suggests that children perform better academically in mixed-income schools. As the country diversifies, parents want children to relate to peers from different backgrounds. And families and educators are starting to push back against the model of charter school that has dominated in some communities, including New Orleans: That model, its critics argue, is segregated by design in that it's created specifically for low-income minority children. These charters often feature a back-to-the-basics curriculum aimed at catching students up quickly, along with a rigid discipline structure that doesn't always appeal to a broad spectrum of parents.
"I have spoken to more than one charter school founder who has a child and their child becomes school-aged and they have an 'aha moment,' " said Eric Grannis, the founder of the Tapestry Project, a New York City-based initiative aimed at supporting the creation of diverse charter schools. "They realize they would not send their own child to the school they have created because they have created a school which is really solely intended for the disadvantaged."
Part of this is because so many foundations and funders have found common cause in supporting what they hope will become "90/90/90" charter schools: Ones where at least 90 percent of students are low-income, 90 percent are minorities, and 90 percent meet set academic standards.
"A fair criticism of the charter school movement has been that there has been too much top-down control from the finance industry, philanthropists, and from foundations," said Grannis.
Challenging a two-tiered education structure
Josh Densen, the founder of Bricolage Academy in New Orleans, says he has a lot of respect for charter schools targeted at low-income students with the explicit goal of closing the achievement gap.
But "what we saw was one type of school model that was offered to kids living in poverty and a very different school model offered to kids living in affluence," he said. "And this to me…seemed inherently inequitable."
Related stories
Bricolage opened in August with just kindergarteners. Densen does not view diverse demographics as the schools' ultimate goal but rather a means to an end: promoting empathy and understanding. "We know that kids are going to grow up and enter into a workforce and world that is way more ethnically diverse," he said. "And in order to be successful in that world they will need to be able to value…other kids who don't share their background."
A second goal of the school is to help nurture creative thinkers. In a class called "innovation," for instance, the children learn problem-solving skills. One recent afternoon, their teacher read from the fairy tale Rapunzel, and then asked students to brainstorm ways the prince could scale the tower to reach the woman he coveted. Their responses ranged from the pragmatic (building stairs or an elevator) to the fantastical (creating a "flying machine.")
Richard and April Johnson, whose son is mixed race, said they were drawn to Bricolage because of its dual focus on diversity and critical thinking. "The concept of being able to teach kids how to think and not just memorize facts was really appealing to us," said April Johnson.
Some of the skeptics of diverse charter schools, in New Orleans and elsewhere, doubted they could attract white or middle class families – families who decades ago abandoned all but a few of the city's public schools.
But in fact they've had the opposite problem in some communities. Middle class families have flocked to the schools, and that has threatened their goal of diversity.
When Bricolage first started accepting applications, 55 families applied within the first 48 hours, said Densen. Most of them were from families who self-identified as making too much money to qualify for free or reduced price lunch.
By recruiting at Head Start centers and other programs with high concentrations of low-income preschoolers, Bricolage was able to achieve the diversity it hoped for: About 43 percent of students qualify for free or reduced lunch; 45 percent are white; and 41 percent are black. (At open enrollment schools that are oversubscribed children are entered into a random admissions lottery.)
But then came the even bigger challenge.
"I always said the easy part was going to be bringing together kids from diverse backgrounds," said Densen. "The much, much harder part was going to be bringing the adults together from diverse backgrounds."
One school, separate lunch tables
At schools with diverse socioeconomics, the wealthier families often have the time to volunteer or run the PTA. They own cars, making it easier to get involved. And they have confidence that comes with privilege. That confidence empowers them to question authority, and share their vision for the school.
Early on in Morris Jeff's tenure, some of its founders began realizing that middle-income parents were assuming most of the leadership roles in the parents' organization, known as the family partnership. "I think that's always the danger of parent organizations, is that you get strong and powerful…and then at the same time not everybody feels like they belong," said Aesha Rasheed, vice-president of the board at Morris Jeff.
The family partnership redoubled its efforts to be inclusive, connecting families so that they could carpool and hosting coffee chats, for instance.
But Crystal Daspit, a mother with three children at the school, said it's hard to break old patterns — even among the kids. Just recently, she asked her son whom he sits with at lunch.
"He sat with all the people who are like him and he had specific ideas about the other people who are not like him," she said. "So we had to talk about, 'When you walk into a room who do you gravitate to? How are you going to bridge those differences?'"
Lofton-Bagert said it's important that schools like Morris Jeff never grow complacent.
"I think the danger will be if we ever come to a day where we say, 'Oh, we are different and therefore we have figured out race or figured out class,'" she said. "We struggle with all the same issues that the rest of the city struggles. I think the only difference is we're choosing to do it together."


text:
Subscribe to Our Newsletter
Regulatory Loophole Spurs Increased Sales, Threatens Public Health, Siphons Taxes
(SACRAMENTO) – Attorney General Bill Lockyer today announced he has petitioned the federal government to close a regulatory loophole that has increased youth and adult smoking of cigarettes disguised as "little cigars," and allowed the manufacturers to evade marketing restrictions and higher taxes that apply to cigarettes.
"The manufacturers of so-called 'little cigars' are deceiving and endangering consumers and our children, and federal rules allow them to get away with it," said Lockyer. "These products are made like cigarettes, their smoke can be inhaled like cigarettes, and they present the same serious health risks as cigarettes. Yet federal regulations allow the makers to call them cigars and sell them as cigars. That allows them to evade marketing restrictions and higher taxes that apply to cigarettes, and increases youth access by lowering the prices. The federal government should close this dangerous loophole."
Lockyer and the Attorneys General of 38 other states and Guam petitioned the federal Alcohol Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) to adopt rules revising the definitions of cigars and cigarettes. The goal is to ensure that "little cigars" – which actually are cigarettes wrapped in brown paper – are classified, taxed and priced as cigarettes.
"Little cigars" appeal to youths because they often are sold individually or in "kiddie packs" of less than 20, which makes them cheaper, and because in many cases they are sweetened with flavors such as chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, cinnamon and spearmint. Some of the more popular brand names include Winchester, Smoker's Choice, Prime Time and Cheyenne.
Federal law defines cigars as tobacco wrapped in leaf tobacco or substances containing tobacco. Federal and state laws, including California's, generally define cigarettes as tobacco wrapped in paper or other substances not containing tobacco. State and federal statutes also define cigarettes as tobacco wrapped in any substance that includes tobacco, if its appearance, the type of tobacco used in the filler, or its packaging and labeling, indicate it will be sold and purchased as a cigarette.
The problem stems from a rule issued by the TTB that sought to clarify the federal definitions. Under the rule, if manufacturers label their products cigars, the presumption is the products will not be sold or bought as cigarettes. Essentially, the rule allows the tobacco companies to self-classify their products as cigars.
Selling their brown cigarettes as cigars provides substantial benefits to manufacturers. It allows them to pay significantly lower taxes and avoid the requirement under most state laws that cigarettes be sold in packs of at least 20 sticks. In combination, those two factors permit dramatically lower prices. For example, the taxes on a carton of "little cigars" in California total $3.77, compared to $16.76 for a carton of cigarettes.
Cigar makers also do not have to abide by the youth and other marketing restrictions imposed by the Master Settlement Agreement reached in 1998 between tobacco companies and 46 state Attorneys General. And most cigar makers do not have to place federal health warnings on their products.
Tobacco companies have exploited the regulatory loophole in recent years, which have seen an explosion in little cigar sales and production. Between 2000 and 2004, while taxable sales of cigarettes declined 13 percent, taxable sales of little cigars increased 51 percent. Similarly, from 2000 to 2005, little cigar production rose 71.8 percent, while cigarette production fell 18.9 percent.
Consumption of "little cigars" also has exploded. From 1998 through 2005, consumption of the products increased by more than 2 billion sticks, from 1.638 billion to 3.772 billion, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Some data suggest "little cigars" are enjoying rising popularity among younger smokers. A study of college freshmen found that students who said they smoked were more likely to smoke little cigars than cigarettes or regular cigars. Two other studies published in 2004 and 2005 found that high school students in New Jersey and Cleveland, Ohio smoked cigars more often than cigarettes. "While public health organizations and states have been successful in lowering cigarette smoking rates among teens, little cigar and cigar use is threatening to reverse these gains and plunge another generation into tobacco addiction," said the Attorneys General in their petition to the TTB.
Youths may mistakenly believe they are smoking a product that poses less health risks because it's labeled a cigar. But the products are made to be smoked and inhaled just like cigarettes, which means they present the same addiction and health dangers.
Additionally, while the makers call these products cigars, their advertising actually aims to sell consumers on the concept that the products are just like cigarettes, only cheaper. "So much like cigarettes, it's hard to believe they are cigars," proclaims one ad. The tobacco companies have made their strategy clear. As the petition to the TTB notes, Harry Preston, national accounts manager for J.C. Newman Cigar Company, has sugested that convenience stores display little cigars near the register and instruct their clerks to tout them as an alternative to cigarettes.
The rule proposed by the Attorneys General would eliminate the current loophole by stripping manufacturers of the ability to self-classify their products as cigars. Instead, tobacco products would be deemed cigarettes if the tobacco filler or packaging possess any one of several specific characteristics, or if "the product is marketed or advertised to consumers as a cigarette or cigarette substitute."