Exactly my thoughts reading this. I would guess this author does not cook. Or has not done so in a closed isolating kitchen while family or friends chat happily just around a wall out of earshot.
Nothing is more maddening than trying to read or watch television in the tall-ceilinged living room with someone banging pots and pans or using the food processor 10 feet away in the open kitchen.
I was scratching my head while reading the article because my wife and I are looking to do the opposite and tear down the wall between the kitchen and the dining room. I happen to be the cook and for the same reasons as the GP, I enjoy being able to talk and converse while I'm cooking. I'm not interested in so-called "chef kitchens" to impress people, however I've put a lot of thought into optimizing the space I have. Small is good when there's only 1 cook. But that's a separate issue from the socializing aspect while cooking.
I cook almost every day for my family. I would say that half the time I wish I had a closed floor plan, and half the time I'm glad I have an open one. Here's the deal. Sometimes I want my kids to stay out from under my feet when I'm cooking, and I want to just listen to my podcasts or whatever. Other times, especially when friends are over, I'm really glad I have an open plan kitchen.
Speaking as someone with a closed kitchen and small kids: the closed kitchen doesn't keep the kids out from under my feet while cooking unless my wife is home to watch them.
Otherwise, they are under my feet because they want to be near me and talk to me and get my attention. I can't just close the kitchen door and ignore a toddler. This happens much more than in our previous open-kitchen apartment, because they could get my attention from the couch or living room floor while I was cooking.
Oh, yeah, that's to be expected. My kids invade the kitchen even when my wife is home, though. I feel like if I were out of sight that might happen less often. But maybe I'm wrong.
Because cooking has turned into something social somehow, people don’t want to be isolated in the kitchen any more.
But in the past, someone walking into the kitchen while you were cooking would probably have been akin to them walking in on you in the toilet (“What!? No, I don’t want them to see the dinner until it’s actually done!”).
> Because cooking has turned into something social somehow ...
This comment boggles the mind. I would wager that probably for thousands of years, cooking has been a communal (if perhaps gendered, good riddance) affair, and only with the advent of the unemployed housewife of the 50s suddenly the kitchen is seen as this private affair.
But i guess i'm the wrong person to be commenting, because generally i'm no fan of all this extreme individualism :)
>But in the past, someone walking into the kitchen while you were cooking would probably have been akin to them walking in on you in the toilet
Depends on how far in the past, and where.
In the USSR, kitchen has always been the place where people would end up spending a long time talking about whatever.
There is even a phrase "kitchen conversations", which would mean talking politics (without regard to what the Party says).
And, of course, the Kitchen was the social hub in the communal flats (living with roommates, Soviet-style). There usually would be no common area in a communal flat other than the kitchen.
Exactly the opposite. People with open floor plans don't cook every day, otherwise their home will smell like a cheap restaurant, unless they got used to it.
My parents have an open plan, i don't. My home smells fresh every day (except kitchen) despite cooking every day, their house, smells like food in every corner because the smell impregnates in every material(especially in the winter) and is very hard to get it out.
This must mean the fans aren’t powerful enough which seems strange if the house is reasonably modern. I once lived in a place with no proper duct to the outside at all (just a fan with a filter but recycling air) and in that place I avoided frying anything. If course no fan is perfect and if I’m frying something it will be noticeable in adjacent rooms, but I want the smell of cooking to be noticed in the house. It’s usually a positive thing. It does disappear again. If I hated it I’d rather buy a more powerful fan than have a kitchen door.
I cook nearly every day. I have an open floor plan. My house does not smell like a restaurant. You just have to use a vent when things smoke and, you know, clean.
I admit I'm a little bit confused by the constant refrain of "people want to be protected from cooking smells". I'm arriving at the conclusion that "cooking smells" is actually a euphemism for badly designed/insufficiently exhausted kitchens.
Because it's a distinct minority that I've ever encountered who proclaims: "drat, is that freshly baked bread and pastries, how disgusting! and freshly ground coffee, ewww, can't stand that, and stir fry that we love, absolute vomit! citruses, again!?"
what are people doing that food smells are listed as a negative connotation?
Exactly my thoughts reading this. I would guess this author does not cook. Or has not done so in a closed isolating kitchen while family or friends chat happily just around a wall out of earshot.