In this blog we look at the impacts that the harsh conditions of the 18th century had on our kitchens moved inside the home.
The early days till 18th Century
Between the first kitchen “the fire” and the 18th century, there was no doubt a lot of changes to the kitchen. This era saw some major milestone one significant change was that the kitchen moved inside the home!
Hardship in the 18th Century
In the eighteenth-century, as larger towns and cities formed society ran into a major problem, poverty. As a result there was really 2 trends with kitchens, ones for the the haves, and one for the have nots.
While the quality of diet of the poor was quite different from that of a middle class or wealthy person, the main food ingredients were the same, what was was different were the flavours that could be added.
For example, during the colonial period most people ate some type of corn cake. However, with extra money, one could purchase sugar, butter, and spices to enhance the recipe.
Surprisingly enough colonial cooks started to use a lot of the techniques we use now.
They prepared foods by frying, roasting, baking, grilling, and boiling, much as we do in our homes today. In this era society started to eat a lot of what we have available today – including ice cream!
Watch in full Episode 2
A pretty basic space
One thing to consider was that most of the people’s kitchens were not perceived to important enough to have a defined area in a house, probably because with no recreational time, it was purely a utility. Everyone used to cook in the same room they lived over an open fire. This came with poor air quality and poor health.
Contain a fire in Chimney?
In this century the development of chimneys evolved but not without their own issues, like burning down towns and such.
High Society
In the upper class of society, economic and political trends had found their way into the household, particularly when it came to French cooking. This came with elaborate recipes and formal table settings, it was common practice for dinner parties to be held for up to 75 guests! As a result, a large kitchen was needed in order to be capable of preparing such large quantities, many servants would be needed as well. These high society dinner parties would last for numerous hours and consist of many courses. Well that hasn’t changed much..
The Kitchen as its own Space
This probably was the time when for the more affluent the kitchen got its own room, keeping those pesky servants out of the way. Interesting enough this impacted on kitchen design for a long time and only started to change as societal roles evolved. People of this time period had to become creative, across all classes with food preservation. There was no such things as a fridge, so food preservation methods, like (pickling, smoking, fermentation) where required .
Funny how covid has make a lot of people look more back at these methods.
Ice was coming in some instances from the north and south poles for your icebox its was at a substantial price. 18th century was considered almost a recipe turning point in a lot of cases when it came to cooking and flavours. Whilst people were poor, they were creative with what they had.
Kitchen in 1700’s
As the industrial revolution advanced new inventions came onto the market. The 18th century saw the introduction of metal stoves. The Franklin Stove above, which was invented by Benjamin Franklin in 1742 had a labyrinth path for the extremely hot exhaust gases, to escape. A lot of these where designed for heating rather than cooking.
Still cooking stoves where known to be quite dangerous as we moved from wood, to coal onto gas.
So what can we learn from the kitchens of this era?
Affluence lead to experimentation
Well we can see clearly that its only as society got progressively better off that the kitchen moved from just a place to cook food, to being a place to prepare taste sensations. With the evolving industrial revolution getting into top gear, there were inventions coming thick and fast, apparently make our life easier.
One thing in this era that did change was the idea of sitting around the hearth sharing ideas, maybe that moved to the dining room table for some.
The next chapter in our evolution 1800’s to WWI
From the early to mid 1800’s up until the first world war, the changes to kitchens and society where enormous, come along next time as continue our journey.
