A kitchen is a room or part of a room used for cooking and preparing food in a home or commercial establishment. A modern kitchen is usually equipped with a stove, sink with hot and cold running water, a refrigerator and kitchen worktops and modular kitchen cabinets. Many families have microwaves, dishwashers and other equipment.
The main function of a kitchen is to serve as a place to store, cook and prepare food (and related tasks such as dishes), but also to eat, entertain and wash clothes.
Commercial kitchens can be found in restaurants, cafeterias, hotels, hospitals, education and work centers, barracks and similar facilities. These kitchens are usually larger and equipped with larger, more durable appliances than a kitchen / diner. For example, a large restaurant can have a large refrigerator and a large dishwasher. In industrialized countries, commercial kitchens are generally subject to the laws of public health.
They are regularly monitored by public health officials and forced to close them if they do not comply with health regulations.
The development of the kitchen is related to the invention of the kitchen or the oven and the development of a water infrastructure capable of channeling running water into houses.
The food was cooked in an open fire. Technical advances in food warming in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries changed the architecture of the kitchen. Before the appearance of modern pipes, the water came from an external source, such as wells, pumps or springs.
