By Jim Studer
Growing up in our house with eight kids, the center of activity was the kitchen. More accurately it was the extended kitchen that spilled over into the new addition. As in most kitchens it included a table, not in any way to be confused with a dining table. Not only did we eat at the table, we did homework, played cards and chatted with visitors ranging from neighbors to relatives including friends of any of the eight kids.
It was a homey place. A relative or neighbor would walk in without knocking and often went straight to the cupboard for a glass and filled it with satisfying cold well water or straight to the refrigerator for a beer, Kool-Aid, or some of dad’s dill pickles, summer sausage or American cheese. They might have walked over to the stove and lifted the lid and inhaled the aroma of what was cooking. The kitchen was what made this house a home.
The word kitchen can be traced back to German and even further back to Latin. The original word meant cook or cooking. Like most creatures it has evolved.
As a youngster I knew kitchens as a place where people gathered, not in living rooms or dining rooms, if there were any. The rec room had not yet been born. At my grandparent’s house, which did have a dining room, the center of visiting was a kitchen table. Visitors sat and talked, played cards, or watched grandma bake bread, make noodles or stir up a pot of chicken noodle or potato soup. This is where I sat with grandpa as he listened on the radio to play by play of the Minneapolis Lakers, Millers and later the Twins games. He recorded their action in score books.
My great aunt Agnes’ kitchen was even better. It was bigger and had a wood burning range with a boiler for keeping water hot and an oven on each side between hot cooking plates. In winter it was a place to keep warm. Aunt Agnes was a great cook and the huge table served three meals daily. Guest’s visited around the table, played cards or just rested to get off their feet after the farm work. I used to stay there for a week or two in summer and never entered a room other than the mud room, kitchen and upstairs bedroom. The aroma of burning wood solidified the hominess.