Thursday, 26 November 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.

Scholars studying the development of technologies used in the home over the last several thousand years can tie the development of cook stoves and ranges to the concurrent development of the kitchen as we know it today. As those stoves became more sophisticated so too did the kitchens they sat in. Additionally, improvements in plumbing also contributed, though kitchens were still basic up 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.

When we think of kitchens at all as more than just the place where food is made we soon find that even the ancients had versions of kitchens, including the Greeks. Wealthier individuals in that civilization often had separate rooms in their homes where food was heated and prepared. Many times, these rooms were situated next to the bathroom so that both could share the heat from a common fire.

The Romans, who were extremely efficient at taking designs and improving them, actually came up with the idea of large kitchens for common Romans, many of whom didn't have kitchens in their own homes. Wealthier Romans, of course, had kitchens that were often highly equipped and occupied a separate room in a typical Roman villa. Kitchens then kept fires burning all day to cook food.

It was in pioneer colonial America that a kitchen area soon came to be looked at as a vital part of the home. Usually, it was located next to a fireplace that was constructed near a corner of a cabin that was used not only to heat the living area but also the food. It was only later in American history that the kitchen came to be placed into a separate room.

The development of kitchens in the West can probably be tied to the advent of the Industrial Revolution, which powered the inventions and solutions in cook stoves and ranges that allowed for the simultaneous development of the kitchen as we think of it today. Separate rooms were soon built where a stove and its heating elements, along with water from plumbing, could be located.

Nowadays, the types of kitchens on display and available to the average homeowner are practically limitless. Small apartments may often feature a separate area known as a galley kitchen where a stove, a kitchen sink and refrigerator are placed, for example, while larger homes may have very sophisticated and large kitchens that rival in size the total living area of many cabins or homes in the'th century in the West.

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