Despite our endless complaints about slaving over hot stoves, we never seem to tire of kitchens. Here we are again, devoting yet another magazine to cooktops, countertops, and sinks! So what’s the big deal here? Is it because the kitchen embodies status, glamour, and glitz, all served up with a sizzling side of technology? Is it because that’s where all the money is? Or is something deeper going on here?

Let’s face it: anyone with a shred of credit can order up $30,000 in appliances, cabinets, and granite and call it a kitchen. If bells and whistles are all you want, then read no further—just grab your credit card and start shopping. For the rest of us, let’s try stripping away the fancy finishes and hardware and consider some underlying factors to which kitchen designers and appliance salesmen often pay no attention at all.

For example, long before the stove or sink, humans gathered around the sacred hearth, where food was cooked and most family functions took place. Ancient hearths in the Mediterranean region incorporated shrines to the Goddess. Going back even farther to the days of cave dwellers and wandering bands of hunter-gatherers, fire provided warmth, light, social life, cooked food, and protection from predators. So it’s no stretch to say that from earliest times, humans have organized themselves around fire.

This veneration of fire is very much alive around the globe. In India, for example, people make no distinction between the ceremonial fire of rituals and the cooking fire that transforms raw food into the gift of the gods. In other places keeping a fire going continuously is part and parcel of a village’s identity, and renewing the sacred flame at winter solstice is a pivotal annual observance.

Home, in other words, is where the hearth is.

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