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.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2010-09-29 12:11 am (UTC)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.