Kitchen, The Spirit of The House

Everybody know about kitchen, don't they? As it always appears in every houses.   According to The Free Dictionary.com, the kitchen word itself has at least 3 meaning :

1. a room or an area equipped for preparing and cooking food.


2. A style of cooking; cuisine: a restaurant with a fine French kitchen.


3. A staff that prepares, cooks, and serves food.

The history of kitchen around the world must has grown so much following the industrialization and inventions of modern house equipment such as stove and water tap, and of course influenced by others culture through the acculturation . It's seen too in the transformation of the kitchen in most of Indonesian houses. Ancient Javanese kitchen called pawon is one of the example.

A pawon is indeed made for its function as a place where the food is prepared and made. Because in the time passed people use a well as a water source, so the pawon usually takes place in the open backyard area along side the well and the fireplace. And since it’s not Javanese’s (and other Indonesian people) habit of gathering around the table in the dining room to have their meals, so it is in the pawon people enjoy the food. They usually sit on dingklik in the corner of the room.

When the colonialization happened, the Dutch introduced a new way of enjoying meals. So the developing of the Indonesian kitchen begins. Indonesian people start to set a dining table in a separate room with the kitchen named dining room following the habit of the Dutch landlord. And kitchen start to be a room just for cooking.

In the modern era like now, every house already use water tap to console their need of water and the fireplace is replaced by stove. This condition causes several changes in the kitchen interior and exterior. Kitchen now is built more compact. And people sometime separated the place for the prepared of food, called (wet) kitchen and it served in a pantry that is a combination between (dry) kitchen and a dining room, following the development of minimalist style. But the existence of a pantry in Indonesian kitchen is merely an adoption of western kitchen, without considering that western kitchen is developed that way because their food is usually simple in making. That’s why I called it adoption, not adaptation.

Talking about kitchen, 

I do have my own preferences in setting a kitchen. It's based on my family basic need for food and a habit we've been doing all these years since we're kids. The food served in my house is always simple in making. And since it's only four of us, we don't need to cook in a large amount. So I prefer a wet kitchen and pantry in the same place. Besides that, it's my family's habit of cooking together and doing the work while chatting or watching TV, and this type of kitchen can accomodate such weird habit. Another preference is the kitchen must be built compact and easy in cleaning, with drawers where I can keep my already cleaned and dry cooking stuff. So after all the horrible works, and the kitchen is cleaned, we can sit together enjoying the meals while chatting like nothing happened. This condition make my kitchen is the  busiest room in my house. And if the walls could talk, you can hear most of our deepest secret from it. That’s why I called a kitchen is the spirit of the house.[gallery columns="2"]