The Birth of the English Kitchen, 1600-1850

Sara Pennell traces the emergence of the domestic kitchen as a distinctive space that helped make houses homes from the 17th century through to the middle of the 19th, and explores how the kitchen and its contents – from the hearth to the contents of the dresser drawer -- became a site of specialised activity, sociability and strife. Drawing upon texts, images, surviving structures and objects, The Birth of the English Kitchen, 1600-1850 opens up the early modern English kitchen as an important historical site in the construction of domestic relations between husband and wife, masters, mistresses and servants and householders and outsiders; and as a crucial resource in contemporary heritage landscapes.

Sara Pennell is Senior Lecturer in the Department of History at the University of Roehampton, UK.

1. Introduction: The British Kitchen Beyond 'Pots and Pans History' \ 2. Imagining the Early Modern Kitchen \ 3. Locating the Early Modern Kitchen \ 4. Peopling the Kitchen \ 5. 'One Small Pot to Boil In': Equipping and Experimenting in the Kitchen \ 6. The Heart(h) of the Household? Morality, Domesticity and the Makings of the Modern Idea of 'Home' in the Pre-modern Kitchen \ 7. Conclusion: The Kitchen Displayed: Heritage, History and the 'Domestic' \ Bibliography \ Index