These kitchen facts will blow your mind!

Being an average American means that you spend a lot of time in the kitchen. More specifically, about 400 hours per year, according to a recent poll. Yeah, this is how much you stay in this room, and maybe finding out some interesting kitchen facts can be the unexpected thing you need in your life.

The kitchen is not the simple space for cooking meals you once knew. It went through some transformation, and now it’s a place where people gather and spend time together. And there is so much to this space than meets the eye!

This is why these kitchen facts are important. Knowledge is power, and understanding the history of your kitchen can help you view it in a new light. Connecting to a deeper level with the rooms from your home is a fascinating process and also one that will give you a fresh perspective the next time you are renovating.

So are you ready to discover some fascinating trivia with these spectacular kitchen facts?

Dogs used to cook

Now we have all of these modern appliances that help us with everything we can imagine. Do you need to make a shake? You have a robot for this! Do you need to make a cake? No problem; you have multiple robots that can assist you!

But things didn’t use to be this simple. This doesn’t mean people didn’t try to make them simple. It’s our nature to do that, and this is why one of the kitchen facts we want to present in this post is all about the turnspit dog.

This now-extinct breed was specifically bred to assist with cooking. Wondering how this was working? These pups had an important mission, that of turning spit over an open fire. The turnspit dog had a sturdy build with short legs, and they had to run in hamster-wheel-like contraptions that would power the spits used to roast meat.

Also known as Canis vertigus (the Latin for “dizzy dog”), this dog used to be the pillar of kitchens all around Britain. They were ensuring the meat was thoroughly cooked, but they also had some free time on Sundays when their owners would take them to church.

Over time, more and more mechanically powered machines appeared, and the breed disappeared altogether. But this is a nice reminder of how humans and dogs used to work together.

The anti-nazi origins of your modern kitchen

Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky was born in Austria in 1897, and later she became the first woman to attend the University of Applied Arts Vienna. She graduated and became a modernist architect.

But why is this lady important in an article about kitchen facts? Well, she is the creator of the Frankfurt Kitchen. This type of kitchen was designed in 1926 and was intended to be used in small urban spaces to maximize efficiency.

The Frankfurt Kitchen brought some major changes when it came to domestic design because it offered things people had never heard of before. For example, labeled storage bins, easy-to-clean surfaces, and built-in accessories like folding ironing boards and garbage drawers were the main advantages of this type of kitchen, and as you would expect, it was a huge success.

But Schütte-Lihotzky was an ardent Communist, and during World War II she became involved in the anti-Nazi resistance. She took part in underground activities, and in 1941 she was arrested by the Gestapo. She narrowly escaped execution after the liberation of Vienna in 1945 and lived happily ever after until the age of 102!

The dishwasher was invented by a woman

The first modern dishwasher was invented in 1886 by the American socialite Josephine Cochrane. The story says that Josephine was throwing big dinner parties, and she was frustrated because the servants were breaking her fine china while hand-washing the dishes.

So she thought that a machine would do a much better job. At first, it was a hand-powered machine that used water pressure to spray hot, soapy water onto the dishes. Her invention was revolutionary and was the first time someone applied principles of mechanization to washing dishes.

After receiving the patent, Josephine Cochrane founded Cochrane’s Crescent Washing Machine Company. Her invention gained the attention of the public after participating in the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago.

Initially, dishwashers were sold to restaurants and hotels, but slowly they became the popular item we all know and have in our homes today.

The kitchen triangle was invented in the 1940s

The kitchen triangle is a fundamental concept in home design, and it was born out of necessity. People wanted to improve the workflow in their kitchens and make them more efficient. This appeared as a part of a broader movement in architectural design when homes became more compact, so they needed to be optimized in order to be efficient.

Look at your kitchen; there are three essential working areas: the sink, the stove, and the refrigerator. The idea was to reduce the distance between these three points because, by doing this, the time spent cooking and preparing food would also be cut down.

The ideal distance between these three points should be between 12 and 26 feet. When the distance is too big, the workflow is no longer efficient, and if the distance is too small, the kitchen will feel cramped.

Modern kitchens frequently modify this design, either by incorporating it into L-shaped, U-shaped, or galley kitchens, or by simply adjusting it for bigger, open areas where additional components (such as islands) become part of the workflow. This is surely one of the most interesting kitchen facts we know about!

Open kitchens were not always a thing

Nowadays, most of the homes we know have open kitchens. But this type of kitchen was not existing before the 1950s and 1960s. Before this, kitchens used to be enclosed rooms that people used just for cooking. They were hidden from the eye of the guests, reflecting traditional household roles, being used only by domestic staff or the women of the house.

In the post-World War II era, people started gathering at home more and more often, and this was a great opportunity for architects and designers to rethink the home’s layout. They decided that a great idea would be to merge the kitchen with the other living spaces, such as the dining room or the living room.

Frank Lloyd Wright was among the first architects who started designing homes with open spaces, and during the 1950s and 1960s, this started to become a trend. This happened during this time because new materials and technologies offered people the possibility to build more flexible spaces.

Now, we have to say that open kitchens were a cultural reset, and the more social and inclusive household dynamic was embraced very quickly by the Americans. Cooking together with family and friends is a normality. This is no longer a thing that needs to be hidden from the public eye. The kitchen is now a central hub of activity, conversation, and connection.

These kitchen facts just show us how much history, innovation, and culture shaped the homes we live in. This means that maybe your next renovation project can become the next invention that will change the homes of people in the years to come. After all, you never know.

Do you know other interesting kitchen facts? Tell us more in the comments!

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