Downstairs, Upstairs - highly recommend Economist article on women and kitchens through history and across cultures

[Anna8888]

and would love to discuss but can't link as you have to pay for it - Economist dated December 22nd 2007

Can't you just copy and paste it Anna?

It's three pages of micro Economist print and I'm reading it in the print edition

Try here

Thanks Lilymaid and since when have we been able to view the Economist for free? I always used to have to use my subscriber details to read online...

I've been able to find the odd article for several years - I presume most links will give you only a few sentences and then ask you to log in. If not, why am I paying for a subscription for DS (economics student)?

Very interesting, but a little generalist in its views.

1. The majority of people I know do not use takeaways or ready made meals on a regular basis.

1. I think the advent of the 'social' kitchen is pretty much a middle class phenomenon.

1. Although some people might spend £125k plus on a kitchen - the vast, vast majority do not!

1. For us, it is the eating bit that has become more relaxed, with a dining room/sitting room combo rather than a formal dining room setting. The kitchen is still separate.

1. There are a vast number of families who don't have a dining room at all - property prices and all that has lead to people making the most of the room they have so perhaps the dining room in a City Centre apartment has had to be changed into a bedroom and a table shoved in the kitchen?

It is an interesting piece but rather lets itself down by being too middle class oriented and sweepingly generalist!

Why, indeed?

soapbox - on your points:

1. I have no statistics to hand, but judging from the supermarkets I frequent in both France and England (and do I know about supermarket tourism...) a significant proportion of the population of both those countries is using ready-meals on a regular basis, right across the social spectrum

1. Why do you think this?

1. The average spend on a kitchen remodelling in the US was $54,000 in 2006 - surely that's a large spend compared to average income (whatever that may be, but it's not that much)

1. I think that the compromise you make depends on the architecture of your home, which was often designed for other times/mores

1. But interesting, surely, that the dining room is the room you can afford to lose in modern times? In our case our dining room has been made into a library/playroom/media room, albeit that can be transformed back into a semi-formal dining room on the rare occasions we need it.

Don't personally find the article too middle-class...

Where do you eat Anna? Our dining room is a big part of family life tbh, I'd like to have a kitchen with a table and a dining room.
Also, whilst it's true that a number of people do use ready made food, I'd argue that in many households(that I know anyway) it is not something done regularly, more a quick meal for those times they really can't be bothered to cook or have little time.
Personally, my I can't be bothered to cook meal is carbonara because it's really simple and we don't even own a microwave but I know many people who do have ready meals for times of need rather than use them daily.

As a family (of three, or five, depending on the day of the week) we eat around the kitchen table - a six person solid wooden table that we just squeezed in our kitchen (which is one of those French jobbies designed for the servants to work in - flat was built in 1929 and has a back door - now permanently locked - leading to the servants' stairs).

Our flat was also designed with a back corridor for getting to the dining room without passing through the hall , but this has long since been blocked off and made into an additional loo, and a space for the washing machine and tumble drier (washing would have been sent out in 1929).

Over Christmas we will eat in the dining room when our family and friends come over. If we have one child or adult round we squeeze into the kitchen.

We don't own a microwave either .

I'm not into ready-meals for reasons of both taste and health. Though I do buy pre-prepped vegetables and Blue Elephant and Kitchen Guru packs for making curries.

I thought it was a good article, although I hoped from the title that it might have a bit more to say about women's changing roles (or not so changing) within the house.

I think the article reflected the aspirations of society in relation to the kitchen rather than the reality for everyone. Which is fair enough - only a short article.

Iorek - what do you think about women's changing role within the house?

It wasn't what I expected either Iorek.

VS - same question?

Well Anna, I am very opinionated on this subject and have lots of very confused ideas about it, so am delighted you've asked and would love to discuss - but have to go out now, but will join in a bit later...

OK, look forward to reading your opinions in due course

I'm not sure what I was expecting Anna, tbh.
My views on this are quite mumble-jumbled too
so excuse me if I ramble!

I was not sure whether it was going to be a view on the sexist way women are still portrayed as the housewife and even though it is more common in todays society to have SAHD or both parents working and sharing the chores the kitchen is still very much geared towards a woman. Both physically and socially.

The article slightly picked up on the height of the sink for example, though not for the reasons I would, now DP is not of extreme height but he finds it harder to use our kitchen than I do, the extractor fan is where his head goes, the sink is level with his hips etc. and this is an averge kitchen, it's the same in most houses.

When we watch adverts for food or kitchens etc on the television it is still very much geared towards women too. Even in television shows you'll often see women sat around the kitchen table chatting whereas the men will be either in the living room or the pub.

As for the changing role in society I don't believe it has necessarily changed as much as we like to think. Women used to have the main role in the kitchen whether it be as a servant or as the mistress watching over the servants, now they are still the main role, more often than not. Just instead of servants we have gadgets and ready cooked/prepared meals.

I also think it sad that in some households it has become a room in which they rush in and out of and is given no real attention, to me the kitchen is the hub of the family home, which I suppose is why it is associated with the mother alot of the time.

The fact that the kitchen is becoming a supposedly less used room in the house just reflects that as a society we seem to have made ourselves too busy for the important things like food, and family interaction.

When the kitchen was a room most used as the family room children IMO learnt to cook as it is something easily picked up on just through watching, the people cooking would spend more time over the meals, put more thought into them (who wants to cook the same dinner every day!) and the variety of dishes was often more varied, thus creating a well-balanced diet. Having to actually prepare something to eat takes the snack value away that is all too common. People that needed a snack used to snack on homemade biscuits or cakes, mmuch more filling than the shop bought variety, or fruit. Again adding to the balanced diet a human body needs to be healthy.

I think that as much as the many factors used to blame for the increase in obesity within our nation we should blame the almost pseudo-feminist attitude towards women spending a great deal of time in the kicthen and/or cooking. I am pleased to say I don't see very much of this on MN though.

I love articles like this. Very useful research for me, too. THanks!

I really liked the article - I am extremely interested in the relationship between our physical environment (architecture and design) and the way we lead our lives (and who does what in the home), and I thought that the article provided some interesting insights on that.

I agree that the kitchen does still tend, in most Western developed countries (let us not even explore the ROW) to be the woman's domain. Women and food preparation/woman as nurturer are intrinsically linked for many people; but I also think that the fact that a kitchen may be designed more often for a woman's physical proportions may have something to do with that. The easier it is for men to use the kitchen (and also to shop for food), the more they seem to do so. So - a larger kitchen and easy-to-use, high quality supermarkets make catering a much more attractive proposition for men.

If you have a small, cramped kitchen originally designed for a servant's use, and shops that are difficult to access / have restricted opening hours etc, men are unlikely to play much role in catering as it is just too disagreeable - they leave it to women.

Eliza2 - it's useful for my research, too, which was one of the reasons I wanted to discuss; what do you do?

I don't think things have changed that much, really. I do what my mother did, by and large. And although my MIL is barking mad and irons socks and pants, and pegs things onto the indoors airer, she and I have more in common than not.

This is the first house I've lived in with a dining room. I grew up in a two bed terrace that had a kitchen and a main room. I get lost in this house We're saving up to spend about £3000 on a new kitchen in about 5 years time

SueBa - LOL at your MIL ironing socks and pants.

My MOL wouldn't know where the iron is kept in her house .

Definitely agree with the shopping thing Anna, dp hates going food shopping whereas it doesn't bother me at all, I quite enjoy it!
I walk round getting what I need in a world of my own, preparing meals in my head so I know what is needed for each one, I have a piece of paper and pen blutacked in my larder so that whenever something runs out (generally herbs and spices) I can write it down and not forget it and I always look around at the different offers etc. DP will happily go into the kitchen and use what I've bought to rustle something up, at least once/twice a week but as I cook more, and do packed lunches etc it really is my domain.

My partner works in retail, so he is fundamentally interested in shops and shopping. We do shopping tourism... We went to Bluewater during our summer holidays (but billed the lunch to his company).

And yet... he will not do food shopping unless it is at Waitrose or La Grande Epicerie or a very grand deli next to his office in Milan. So - if the food shopping is very comfortable and glamorous, OK. The slightest discomfort and he just doesn't do it (unless under major duress).

Whereas I do quite enjoy shopping here at the food markets, where it is high on effort and discomfort, but I nevertheless enjoy the amazing quality of the produce, the making-up-meals in my head and the banter with the shopkeepers who are both very knowledgeable and very good tradespeople.