So, this post was supposed to be about summer kitchens. You know, the old summer kitchen, that was either a separate room or building open to cool summer breezes, allowing the heat of a kitchen to dissipate quickly while all the summer kitchen chores get done without cooking the "cook".
If it is a room in a house, the summer kitchen is like the back porch, where windows/screens would provide a good flow through for summer breezes. If in separate building, the summer kitchen housed makeshift shelving and cabinets to provide the worksurfaces required to get the job done, be it canning the summer garden vegetables, making jam or peach pies.
Summer kitchens were found in large homes or estates, most likely where the summers were oppressively hot and humid. Cooking in the main kitchen would heat up the house and it's inhabitants too much - and there was no such thing as air conditioning.
A search for summer kitchen in Wikipedia returned NO results ... hmmmm ... although I learned an awful lot about "kitchens" and their evolution from a fire in the atrium of a Roman Villa and public kitchens for the less fortunate, to the raised hearth and chimneys of the early medieval kitchens.
FYI: Did you know the Japanese were the first to have what could be called a "stove"? It was called a kamado and dated back to somewhere between the 3rd to 6th century. Wow!
But nothing on summer kitchens. Hmmmm - well lets look at the pictures generated by googling summer kitchen. So, here's where my definition of summer kitchen gets updated. These babies are a-m-a-z-i-n-g and I want one!!!
Any of these strike your fancy??? Well, a girl can dream ... sighhhh ...
Photo credits: 1,3,13-LandscapeAdvisor.com; 2-ThisOldHouse.com; 4-Sydney Morning Herald (smh.com.au); 5,6,7,8,9,11,12-Better Homes & Gardens (bhg.com); 10-HouseBeautiful.com; 14-FrontDoor Unlocked: the Blog (blog.frontdoor.com)
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