| The kitchen mirrors more effectively than any other room in the house the great social changes that have taken place in thc last hundred years. In the early part of this century it would have been surprising to find a middle-class woman in her kitchen. Her servants guarded their domain as jealously as she and her family guarded theirs. Her sole contact with the kitchen would have been with the cook when she came upstairs to discuss the day s menus and with the butler to arrange the wines for dinner. But I think that many of the qualities of that below-stairs life should be studied again bccause, instead of being old-fashioned and inappropriate to the world today, they were simple, effective and efficient. Kitchens and pantries were well planned, cheerful places to work and often supported a con ten ted work-force. Kitchen design has altered dramatically in this century. The effects of two world wars and enormous advances on the technological fiont have made a woman s place in her homc thr different from that of her grandmother s. Many middle-class housewives in the 1920s and i93os were ashamed that they could no longer afford the servants that once supported their life-styles. Their kitchens reflected this, being small, sad and dingy places where meals were prepared as quickly and surreptitiously as possible. |
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