18th century cooks tended a fire and endured smoke in this Swiss farmhouse smoke kitchen The cooking area remained largely untouched by architectural advances throughout the Middle Ages; open fire remained the only method of heating food. European middle ages kitchen areas were dark, smoky, and sooty places, whence their name "smoke kitchen".
In wealthy homes, the ground flooring was frequently used as a stable while the cooking area was located on the floor above, like the bed room and the hall. In castles and monasteries, the living and working locations were separated; the kitchen was sometimes moved to a separate building, and hence might not serve anymore to heat up the living-room.
Couple of medieval kitchen areas endure as they were "infamously ephemeral structures". An extant example of such a middle ages kitchen with servants' staircase is at Muchalls Castle in Scotland. In Japanese houses, the cooking area began to become a separate space within the main building at that time. With the development of the chimney, the hearth moved from the center of the space to one wall, and the very first brick-and-mortar hearths were constructed.
Pots made of iron, bronze, or copper begun to change the pottery utilized earlier. The temperature was controlled by hanging the pot greater or lower over the fire, or placing it on a trivet or directly on the hot ashes. Utilizing open fire for cooking (and heating) was risky; fires ravaging entire cities happened regularly.
This sort of system was widely utilized in wealthier houses. Starting in the late Middle Ages, kitchen areas in Europe lost their home-heating function a lot more and were progressively moved from the living area into a different room. The living space was now heated by cocklestoves, operated from the kitchen, which provided the huge advantage of not filling the space with smoke.
In the upper classes, cooking and the cooking area were the domain of the servants, and the kitchen area was set apart from the living spaces, often even far from the dining-room. Poorer houses typically did not yet have a separate kitchen area; they kept the one-room arrangement where all activities happened, or at the most had the kitchen in the entryway hall.
0 
Star