Plain Food Institute: Kosher Kitchen Planning - Part I

    The Plain Food Institute maintains a fully-adjustable test kitchen in which every counter, every cabinet, every appliance, and every aisle may be tested for ergonomic and economic efficiency.  PFI approaches the problem of kitchen design just as it does food preparation, looking for the quickest and least expensive solution to get the job done.  Many people building a new kitchen or remodeling an old one select expensive appliances and materials hoping, maybe expecting, that the food cooked therein will benefit accordingly.  It ain't necessarily so.    We encourage the use of cheap imitations if they're good enough.  In fact good enough is what we strive for.

 The summary of our findings and recommendations is presented in two parts: (1) the conventional and (2) unconventional residential kosher kitchen.  The conventional assumes the point of view of the typical residential consumer, the unconventional the commercial kitchen user.  Unlike a commercial kitchen, however, a residential kitchen is usually operated by only one person.  Still, there are methods, materials, and placements that can be applied from one to the other.

    In a Jewish home the single most important communal activity is eating. If the dining room is the most important public space, the kitchen as its service component is the most important working space.  As a food preparation hub, it serves three eating areas in most homes: the formal dining room, the informal breakfast room, and in season, the sukkah.  Naturally, they are arranged so the kitchen can easily support all three.

Our model kitchen is visually open to the breakfast area and closed to the formal dining room. The first thing people do when remodeling older kitchens is to strip out the suspended cabinets, pass-throughs, or breakfast bars that divide the eating from the cooking area.  Built-in breakfast bars or counters with high stools always look good...in theory or in somebody else's house...but usually turn out to be far less useful in practice.


    Although we like it to look nice, a kitchen must work.  All the fixed components such as appliances, countertops, and storage must be situated for efficient access and configured to support the flow of work.  If the human body is the measure of reach and travel, cooking processes determine configuration.  While some processes specifically require heating, washing, or storage retrieval, almost everything requires mixing and assembly.  That is why we always place a plain table at least 3' x 4' in the center of our kitchen. Never, but never put a sink or cooktop in an island!

    Conventional counters are no substitute unless the kitchen is too small to contain an island work area.  A two-foot-wide counter is too small even if it were not made smaller still by the junk often parked there.  Therefore, we've added six inches to the counters.  You can still use the standard two-foot-deep cabinets underneath positioned six inches away from the wall behind.  This dimension also better accommodates larger ranges and refrigerators. 

    Walking aisles are generously proportioned for the occasional helper(s) or catering staff.  A three-foot-wide aisle works fine for a single person, but can be cramped if people need to squeeze by each other.  If a little is good, more is not necessarily better.  Making either the aisles or the kitchen itself bigger can actually make it worse.  There shouldn't be more than one step between either sink, stove, or storage and the central worktable.