Why we all gather in the kitchen

It used to be that you knew your neighbors by the aromas wafting from their kitchen windows. If it was oregano and tomato, you knew the family was Italian. If the fragrance was of paprika, they were Hungarian. That was the case for Steven Gdula (pronounced ga-DOO-la). He tracks the trends and technology of the kitchen in "The Warmest Room in the House/How the Kitchen Became the Heart of the Twentieth-Century American Home" (Bloomsbury, 238 pages, $24.95). Gdula will speak at the Mill City Museum on Saturday.

Q Why did you write this book?

A The main reason was that I wanted to explore why my parents' kitchen was the most populated room in the house. Whether it was a Sunday or holiday dinner, everybody was hanging out in the kitchen.

I've always had an interest in food, and wanted to explore the history of the kitchen economically, socially and culturally. It was an interesting backdrop that led me to ask why the kitchen is the hub of the home.

I realized this past weekend as I was cooking for friends that I truly enjoy having someone to cook for, and that came from my parents. They did give me that sense of the kitchen as always some place to come back to. It's always where the family is, or the family we've made.

There is something about the preparation of those foods, that space that helps us connect with something deeper. The kitchen is a nice, warm, almost temple sort of place. It's nurturing and nourishing for the soul.

Q You write about how, even in the 1900s, people were worried about change in the kitchen. This was a time when measurements were being introduced, when electricity was becoming mainstream, when the nutritional quality of food was being considered.

A There was a distrust of science with something so new. And the order of the kitchen was changing from smoky scullery to a more lab-like room. There had been a very rustic approach to cooking and in the early 1900s, government stepped in. Culinary traditions were changing. There was a call for a prescriptive sameness, a whitewashing of recipes and foods and means of preparation that had been part of the immigrant experience. We get homesick for the foods we grow up on. When we look at how people are assimilated, food traditions are the last thing people let go of. Look at some of those recipes that Fannie Farmer was putting out; some were not even palatable.

Q Concerns about food safety are nothing new, as you have noted.

A The snake oil salesmen started in the 1840s. Sylvester Graham [creator of the graham cracker] was a proponent of cracking down on vendors who put chalk in milk and additives in flour. At every point in time, people are trying to make a buck.

Q What do you forecast for the kitchen 50 years from now?

A People always underestimate the need we have to get our hands on the food we're preparing and, often times, our need to raise our food whether produce or livestock. Look at what people projected 40 to 50 years ago where the kitchen would be today: We were going to have meal pills. No, people like to chew. There's a certain amount of satisfaction of mouth feel of certain foods. What will change the most is that people will be more mindful of where food is coming from. There will be more a sense of stewardship of meals.

More than anything else, the goodwill that goes beyond the kitchen door will continue. It's what neighbors share with each other. With such diversity as we have in America, we will influence cuisine even more. There is always the assumption that technology will serve us better in years ahead. It might. Maybe we'll have silicone sinks where glasses don't break, dishes don't chip, and it would muffle noise.

Technology will continue to serve us, but more in terms of sustainability and adaptability and not in the "Star Wars" mentality. It will be more of making use of resources we have.

Q What have you found as you've talked to readers at book signings?

A People always share their kitchen memories of growing up: what they ate as children and how they have taken those recipes into their current kitchens. I see more trends toward one-pot meals. They are cheap and time-savers. There is also something about the all-in-one vessel. If people are comfortable with you, they like digging into the same pot. It's a nice connection.

Lee Svitak Dean • 612-673-1749