Sarah Archer

I guess there's like our culture is a lot less unified maybe today, but at least from like, you know, from an anecdotal perspective or whatever kind of sense you have of this, like, is there an ideal kitchen today?

Like, what do those look like to you?

So I have kind of a working theory about this.

I would say in terms of the post-war era, so the kitchen historically had been, it was a site of work.

And up until about the 1920s, it tended to be either just things in your dwelling that you used to heat up food and water because you maybe lived in one room or two rooms, or you were wealthy and you had people to do that for you.

So that was a room that you didn't go into.

Right.

So there wasn't really the idea of the kitchen as a place where you hang out.

Right.

Is a relatively new idea.

Well, or I guess in the sense that maybe in the like, if we're talking about, you know, let's say you and I are settling on a farm in Connecticut.

Mm hmm.

And I'm imagining a scenario described in one of my favorite books, More Work for Mother.

Mm hmm.

And we would like basically live in one room probably as like, you know, small farmers and kind of like cottage industrialists and people like, you know, kind of doing a lot of little different kinds of work here and there.

And we would probably have like a hearth

with a fire with like a big pot or a cauldron, I guess, on top of it.

We would be having some stew, probably.

I mean, is that fair to say?

More or less.