American kitchen?

[rain_gryphon]

You British people - what does the phrase "American kitchen" mean in a real estate listing? It came up in a novel I was reading ('By the Pricking of my Thumbs', Agatha Christie, 1968) when the heroine was looking to rent a house.

Comments

[xolo.livejournal.com]

I kept getting a lot of hits for restaurants, kitchen suppliers, etc, all named 'American Kitchen'.

[pyesetz]

A remarkable example of a question not easily answered by Google!

[xolo.livejournal.com]

Every so often, they come along.

[loganberrybunny.livejournal.com]

I've no idea! Looking it up, the only .uk sites to mention it seem to be ones advertising holiday villas in countries other than the UK. There's a picture on this page (http://www.holiday-rentals.co.uk/p81233), but I can't say I'd look at the kitchen photo and think "Wow, an American kitchen!" were it not labelled as such.

Looking at Google Images results (http://www.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&q=%22American%20kitchen%22%20site%3Auk&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&biw=1920&bih=853), the one thing that does occur is that most of them seem fairly open-plan. (Note the washing machine: not very American I know, but it would confuse us not to have one in the kitchen!) Traditional British kitchens are either quite small, in which case they're completely separate rooms with little or no dining furniture; or large enough to be "breakfast kitchens", in which case they might well have a table and chairs but would not be used for more formal dining.

I suppose it's also just about possible, given the date of the book, that it might refer to a kitchen with fitted appliances at that time uncommon in Britain. The US has consistently been ahead on that front: you still can't necessarily expect a dishwasher or a microwave in a British kitchen, for example. I'm not certain what would have been seen as "American" in 1968, though, and I actually doubt this is the answer.

[xolo.livejournal.com]

I don't see anything particularly American about those kitchens, but then again I might not. It's out of fashion these days to have washers and dryers in the kitchen, but that was common here when I was growing up. The basement was the most common place for them, but people lacking finished basements usually had them in the kitchen. (There was, in fact, a washer sold in the 50s which would wash both clothes and dishes, although it did neither job very well).

I was speculating along the lines of appliances too. That was just after the post-war austerity had ended, so 'American' probably still equated to 'extravagent' in a lot of peoples' minds.

[loganberrybunny.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to remember what kitchens usually contained in my childhood. I can remember back to the very late 1970s, and I think then I would have expected: gas/electric cooker with grill (=US broiler, not barbecue!), sink with draining board, electric kettle, maybe toaster, washing machine, fridge (with small internal freezer compartment) and not a lot else. Tumble dryers would have been rare, I think. I'm pretty sure most washing machines were automatic front-loading models, looking superficially like the modern sorts, by then, but I'm less sure about 1968.

[dakhun.livejournal.com]

Kitchenette

[xolo.livejournal.com]

You sound very confident in your answer.

[patch-bunny.livejournal.com]

A microwave and an extra fridge for the beer.

[xolo.livejournal.com]

I can endorse that.

Hmm...

[ruwhei.livejournal.com]

According to a link I found that discussed a book, "Cold War Kitchen: Americanization, Technology, and European Users" (a particularly apt title for this discussion, I think, considering the reference is in the heart of the cold war in 1968), it would seem to indicate that it is a kitchen with all the modern technological conveniences, and attached to "one moreover that needs to be set within an array of large technological systems: electrical grids, gas networks, water systems and the integrated food and transport chain.", in other words, kitchens suited to mass-consumption (Supermarkets, etc) that Americans enjoyed but Europeans did not necessarily have access to.

I'm sure you remember all the "Dream Kitchen" technology fads in the US in those silly B&W shorts that are shown on mst3k and the like, with everything controlled by "pushbutton magic" and unplausable appliances (like automatic cake makers!).

So what I'm getting from reading this is that an American kitchen is an appliance heavy kitchen: Garbage disposal, large sinks, big stoves, dishwasher, microwaves, large refrigerators to store a lot of food (since you don't go shopping every day), and so forth, and that is is a large kitchen.

By the way, washing machine in the kitchen: very weird to my american pov. :) Where do you keep the dryer? :)

Re: Hmm...

[xolo.livejournal.com]

Ooooo! I missed your reply! How are you these days?

kitchens suited to mass-consumption

That makes a lot of sense, actually, since the house on question was located in a tiny English village, and the American kitchen was mentioned in such a way that the estate agent apparently didn't approve.

When I was growing up, we had our washer in the kitchen. Lots of people did, although that may have been a midwestern thing. There was no dryer - we hung them out on the clothes line. If you really needed a dryer (e.g., rained an entire week, or 20 below zero) you used the laundromat.

[breweryrop.livejournal.com]

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[richladmekud.livejournal.com]

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