for: Kitchen (surname)

For the Banana Yashimoto novel see Kitchen (novel)

A kitchen, is a room or part of a room (sometimes called "kitchen area" or a "kitchenette") used for food preparation including cooking, and sometimes also for eating and entertaining guests, if the kitchen is large enough and designed to be used that way.

A modern kitchen in the affluent parts of the western world is typically equipped with a stove and possibly a microwave oven. It also has a sink with hot and cold running water available for cleaning food, for providing water to cook with, as well as for washing dishes, although some modern kitchens have a dishwasher. One or more units in which to store food, and to store utensils, pots and dishes, are also usually present in or near a kitchen, either in the form of an adjacent pantry room, or more commonly as kitchen cabinets and a refrigerator which often has a freezer compartment too.

Although the main function of a kitchen is supposed to be cooking or preparing food, the kitchen can be the center of other activities as well, especially within homes, depending on the size, furnishings, and equipment. If, as sometimes happens, the home does not have a laundry room, but instead has a washing machine and possibly a dryer in a closet in the kitchen, then washing and drying laundry may also be done in the same room. The kitchen may also be the place where the family eats, provided it is large enough and has a table and chairs. Sometimes, the kitchen is the most comforting room in a house, where family and visitors tend to congregate. In this respect a large modern kitchen is still the psychological "hearth" of the home.

The evolution of the kitchen

The development of the kitchen in the western world has been intricately and intrinsically linked with the development of the cooking range or stove. Until the 18th century, open fire or charcoal were the sole means of heating food, and the architecture of the kitchen reflected this. When technical advances brought new ways to heat food in the 18th and 19th centuries, architects took advantage of newly-gained flexibility to bring fundamental changes to the kitchen. Water on tap in private homes only became gradually available in the western world during industrialization and more recently than that; before, water had to be collected from the nearest outdoor source: well, pump, or spring, and then carried to the kitchen and heated or used in some other way.

Ancient history

The houses in Ancient Greece were commonly of the atrium-type: the rooms were arranged around a central courtyard. 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.