Contemporary
A typical modern Japanese kitchen includes the following:
- Counter: Countertop is usually made of cultured marble, but wood or natural stone is used for higher-end kitchens and stainless steel are used for commercial or lower-end kitchens.
- Large sink
- Cabinets
- Refrigerator and freezer: Especially in smaller kitchens for apartments, the top is usually low enough to use as an additional surface, particularly for appliances, similar to Western dormitory-sized refrigerator/freezers. In larger kitchens, full height refrigerators are common.
- Gas or induction stove: In smaller kitchens, there are only one or two burners, while more often it is three to four burners, with a narrow grill underneath for fish or vegetables. In the low-end apartments, stoves are often not built-in but rather a counter-top appliance, which is attached with a hose to a gas or power outlet. In case of earthquakes, the gas tap is to be turned off to prevent fires.
- Electric rice cooker: Over 95% of Japanese houses have one.
- Electric water boiler or kettle, particularly for making tea, but also instant ramen
- Toaster oven
- Microwave oven or convection microwave
- Extractor hood or fan
Notably absent are a large oven and dishwasher. Large gas ovens are found in some kitchens, particularly in the higher-end dwellings, but in the most kitchens, convection microwave are used instead. Dishwashers can be found in the kitchens for house and condominium, but rarely found in the apartments.
Portable vacuum flasks are popular for carrying home-brewed tea, particularly hot tea in the winter and cold tea in the summer, particularly cold oolong tea.
Read more about this topic: Japanese Kitchen
Famous quotes containing the word contemporary:
“I have the strong impression that contemporary middle-class women do seem prone to feelings of inadequacy. We worry that we do not measure up to some undefined level, some mythical idealized female standard. When we see some women juggling with apparent ease, we suspect that we are grossly inadequate for our own obvious struggles.”
—Faye J. Crosby (20th century)
“The shift from the perception of the child as innocent to the perception of the child as competent has greatly increased the demands on contemporary children for maturity, for participating in competitive sports, for early academic achievement, and for protecting themselves against adults who might do them harm. While children might be able to cope with any one of those demands taken singly, taken together they often exceed children’s adaptive capacity.”
—David Elkind (20th century)
“Americans have internalized the value that mothers of young children should be mothers first and foremost, and not paid workers. The result is that a substantial amount of confusion, ambivalence, guilt, and anxiety is experienced by working mothers. Our cultural expectations of mother and realities of female participation in the labor force are directly contradictory.”
—Ruth E. Zambrana, U.S. researcher, M. Hurst, and R.L. Hite. “The Working Mother in Contemporary Perspectives: A Review of Literature,” Pediatrics (December 1979)