Japanese Kitchen - The "Average Person's Dream Kitchen"

The "Average Person's Dream Kitchen"

In 1912, a progressive woman's magazine Hujin no tomo (婦人の友) ran a contest for a heiminteki risouno daidokoro (平民的理想の台所), or "average person's dream kitchen." Heimin, literally "average person," was a popular phrase in the 1910s and 1920s, and it implied a well-educated and progressive person. Fifty-two contest entries were sent by readers, and two were awarded grand prizes. These winners were called "the city kitchen" and "the village kitchen".

The city kitchen was about 15.5 square metres in size and was intended to be used by a wife and her mother-in-law. The kitchen had doors leading to the dining room, the bath, and the laundry area. It had a wooden floor, roughly one-fourth of which included underfloor food storage lined with concrete. Two kamado were at one end, and a separate portable stove using charcoal was set up in the middle of the room. Next to the kamado was a stone sink without a water tap. Next to this sink were storage shelves with pots and pans on top, washed dishes in the middle, and vegetables and miso on the bottom. Next to the portable stove was a large food preparation table, with several drawers to store cooking utensils. Staples such as rice, sugar, and flour were kept in pots beneath this table. Additional shelves at the other end of the room could be accessed from both the kitchen and the dining room. Next to these shelves was another preparation table where foods were served onto individual dishes and then carried to the dining room. Kitchen windows and shoji were installed with glass panes to make the kitchen brighter, and electric lights were hung from the ceiling. This "dream kitchen" was spacious by today's standards, yet it lacked most modern post-industrial conveniences, although many smaller improvements had been made.

Also around this time, many families started to use a low table called chabudai. It was placed on the tatami, and everyone sat around it, rather than using individual daiban. Until the 1960s, sitting on chairs and eating around a dining table was considered "haikara".