The past few decades have seen a change in the way Australian houses are laid-out and how they are used. Where once there was a formal dining room and a more casual meals area in (or adjacent to) the kitchen, now the trend is for the kitchen to flow to a more informal eating area that often doubles as a living area.
However, this has caused a change in the way that people think about kitchens. What was once a utilitarian space (a place for getting cooking done) is now often seen at least as much as a showpiece. For many kitchens, the aesthetics have sometimes even come to surpass the function. Since many people these days don't really cook much, this is understandable (though ridiculous).
However, there seems to be a parallel trend, even amongst people who value good home-cooked food, to aspire to an immaculate kitchen that looks more like something in a magazine than a place to, er, cook food.
Below are a few photos of my kitchen. I've put a caption on each, describing what can be seen. The kitchen is almost exactly as I fount it when I went to do the dishes tonight. I moved a couple of things slightly, so that they could be better captured by the photo, but what you see is almost exactly what was there. This wasn't planned, and the state of the kitchen is pretty normal for us. The reason I've done this, is that I want to promote an aesthetic of the kitchen as a messy, human space which has a definite purpose of making beautiful food rather than looking good. I aspire to the kitchen that was common in Australia in the 1930s to 1950s (although I'm very happy to accept a few modern conveniences such as a microwave).
Our house was built in 1955, and the kitchen is mostly original from then. In the 1970s, there was a new cupboard installed along the meals area wall, and all the benchtops were replaced. The oven is newer, not sure how old.
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| Starting from left, this photo shows our microwave with the chooks' scraps bucket on top, the grey water bucket on the bench, a bag with home-grown onions poking out the top, our yoghurt-maker, assorted plastic containers full of home made crackers, bread, a bowl of figs that we picked from a tree in the park around the corner, some semi-insulated bags that we use for shopping. |
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| Standing in the same place, but turned 90 degrees to the right, you can see the fridge (an Electrolux ETM4200-series, which uses about 0.8 kWh/day -- very efficient. Bought second-hand for $500), the meals area (where we usually eat) our recycling box, a small container of various stone-fruit-pips (waiting to be planted) a container of grapes and another of figs. You can also see the LED strip light I installed (white line). On the wall, you can see the chasing for the ceiling-fan controls that we've just installed. |
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| This shows the bag of flour we never put away (because we use it most days), a bowl of home grown tomatoes, spice drawers, coffee makers, roasted vegetables, a home made pull-apart loaf. This covers our old and un-funky, but very usable oven. |
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| This shows some of our preserves in the cupboard next to the wine, a mini-oven that I bought cheaply 2nd hand to save power and heat in the house, jars of seeds/spices, cookbooks, etc |
This is all mundane, I don't think our kitchen is particularly exciting. But I do think it is beautiful. I love it. So much great food comes out of this kitchen -- most of it is cooked from scratch, and a lot of it is home grown. For me, I'd much rather have a kitchen like this than something schmick but sterile. I think the idea that utilitarian can be aesthetic is an idea that should be spread.
