The Kitchen: A journey through history in search of the perfect design

by John Ota

One man's quest to seek out--and be inspired by--the great historic kitchens of Canada and the USA.

John Ota was a man on a mission--to put together the perfect kitchen. He and his wife had been making do with a room that was frankly no great advertisement for John's architectural expertise. It just about did the job but for a room that's supposed to be the beating heart of a home and a joy to cook in, the Otas' left a lot to be desired. And so John set out on a quest across North America, exploring examples of excellent designs throughout history, to learn from them and apply their lessons to his own restoration. Along the way, he learned about the origins and evolution of the kitchen, its architecture and its appliances. He cooked, with expert instruction. And he learned too about the homes and their occupants, who range from pilgrims to President Thomas Jefferson, from turn of the century tenement dwellers to 21st century Vancouver idealists, from Julia Child to Georgia O'Keeffe, and from Elvis Presley to Louis Armstrong.

John Ota has a refreshingly upbeat approach and a hunger for knowledge (and indeed for food). His energy and enthusiasm are contagious, and his insights of lasting value. Illustrated throughout, with photographs and also with drawings by the author, this is a book for homeowners, home makers, interior designers, cooks, armchair historians, and for anyone who--like John Ota before them--is looking for inspiration for a renovation.

Genres: Nonfiction, Food

336 pages, Hardcover

First published February 25, 2020

Reviews

[Eileen Quigg · Rating 5 out of 5]

I stumbled upon this book at the Toronto Public Library and I’m so glad I did. I read it slowly and sporadically, but always closed it feeling a creative spark. My favourite chapter was Georgia O’Keeffe - I want a couch in my kitchen.

[Timothy Neesam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes, I enjoyed The Kitchen so much that I devoured it over the course of a week. And could easily do so again.

Author and guide Jonathan Ota introduces us to kitchens in noteworthy homes in search of elements that make up the perfect kitchen.

We learn how the architecture of individual homes fits into their time period, from the 1600s through to today, and how that is reflected in cooking choices. In addition to an architectural tour, Ota also makes meals in the kitchens, or nearby if it's not possible or feasible (with recipes at the end of the book). Each essay culminates in a kitchen 'takeaway' in the form of a letter from Ota to his wife, Franny.

We tour the kitchens of, among others, Thomas Jefferson, Georgia O'Keefe, Julia Child, Louis Armstrong, and others as well as Spadina House in Toronto, a tenement home in New York City, a Victorian home in Victoria, BC, culminating in the hand-built home of a relative on Vancouver Island.

The Kitchen is filled with enthusiasm, epiphanies, humanizing moments (such as a baked alaska-induced anxiety attack at a home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright) and, above all, an appreciation for the different aspects of life that kitchens bring together. A final letter from Franny to Ota ties the book together. It's a little pat but works beautifully.

This is one of those special books that I've been buying and giving to friends. It's that good, and that much fun. Highly recommended.

[Shelley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great stories about the quest for a perfect kitchen. I loved that it was chronological and started in a 1600's kitchen. I think about food and food prep differently now, much more appreciative of the effort that went into surviving way back when. Good food for thought stories. Also I hope to see some of these sites one day!

[Abena Anim-Somuah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an incredible read. It’s the perfect blend of history , food writing, and the letters at the end of each chapter are just the most adorable. It was incredible to join John Ota on a historical journey filled with elements of design, architecture, and culinary arts. The kitchen is the most important element of the house and it was awesome to see how it has held this title throughout history. Couldn’t recommend this book enough

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

The description and process of cooking of some of the favorite/specialty dishes of each kitchen's occupant made my mouth water, and the description of the house was interesting, but overall, I found this lacking as a history of the evolution of the kitchen. You do get to see how kitchens have changed from the pilgrims to modern day, but this book is definitely presented more as personal food writing rather than a historical survey.

[Kieran · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is an exercise in designing your perfect kitchen based on loving three things: your wife, cooking and architecture. It's a wholesome look at many of North America's most iconic kitchens with a lens I wasn't expecting. It's conversational and doesn't make architecture daunting. Touring to famous kitchens is the most extra means of planning a kitchen reno, and I loved every second of it

[Janet Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

A couple of months ago, my brother Colin sent me The Kitchen, by John Ota, a fellow Torontonian who took part in a U of T webinar on "The Evolution of the Kitchen." Knowing that I like to cook, eat, and spend time in kitchens, Colin figured I would like the book, and I did!

I read it slowly, sometimes only a chapter at a time, in between other books, but that is one of my favorite ways to read non-fiction.

The premise of the book is that John and his wife are designing their dream kitchen and so John visits a number of kitchens in the U.S. and Canada to get ideas on functionality, décor, esthetics, and ergonomics. Each chapter focuses on one particular kitchen from a particular time period and includes a cooking session, usually in the actual kitchen being profiled, as well as an annotated layout and recipe of what John and the resident food expert made.

Here are the kitchens John visited:

Pilgrim Kitchen - Plymouth, MA (1627) - I would love to visit this kitchen, and John talked a lot about comfort food. Life was hard in Plymouth Colony, and cooking was challenging but the recipes yielded good, hearty food.

Thomas Jefferson Kitchen at Monticello - VA (1809) - another place that is on my short list to visit. The kitchen, staffed by slaves, and the food prepared there reflected Jefferson's passion for innovation in horticulture and architecture.

Hermann-Grima House Kitchen, New Orleans (1831) - this kitchen in the French Quarter focused on Creole recipes, but the French Toast that John and his guide cook up sounds divine.

Point Ellice House Kitchen, Victoria, BC (1890) - we're planning a trip to WA/BC next September and I have already added this house to our itinerary. A lot of the focus here was on the kind of gracious living that comes from having a staff of servants, think Downton Abbey. Interestingly, the dish that John made in this kitchen was Hindoostanee Curry. Indian dishes became popular in Canada during the second half of the nineteenth century when most of India came under British rule.

Levine Tenement Kitchen, NYC (1897) - I visited the Tenement Museum on the lower east side of NYC a few years ago, and toured some of the apartments. The recipe for this kitchen is matzo ball soup, and it does sound delicious!

Gamble House Kitchen, Pasadena, CA (1909) - another site that I've also visited. We went for the Arts and Crafts architecture and really enjoyed touring the house, but I don't know that the kitchen was included in the tour. I mostly remember how dark it was inside with all that wood and minimal artificial lighting. John helped prepare pinwheel sandwiches and "Automobile" salad for a picnic.

Spadina House Kitchen, Toronto (1920) - another Victorian house, decked out for Christmas when John visited, and the shortbread he makes with a 90-year old guide sounds heavenly.

Georgia O'Keefe Kitchen, Abiquiu, NM (1949) - I love the Southwest and the Santa Fe and Taos areas, but I've never visited Abiquiu. This chapter is all about garden-fresh produce and living close to the earth. Georgia liked good food and taught her cooks how to cook what she liked. John attended a Georgia O'Keefe-inspired cooking class at the Santa Fe School of Cooking. This is now on my list of things to do on our next trip to Santa Fe!

Frank Lloyd Kitchen at Kentuck Knob, Mill Run, PA (1956) - what could be more apt than to prepare a Baked Alaska in a mid-century modern kitchen? I've never actually had Baked Alaska, but I think I need to figure out how to try one. Is it on any menus anywhere anymore?

Julia Child Kitchen, Smithsonian Museum, Washington, D.C. (1961) - yep, I also visited this kitchen during a Spring Break with the kids in DC. I loved this chapter because Julia's kitchen reminded John of his mom's kitchen and how she cooked and how it was such a creative outlet for her. I think I once tried to make Julia's cheese soufflé - it was yummy but without the right airiness that John describes in the one he makes.

Louis Armstrong Kitchen, Queens, NYC (1970) - red beans and rice, turquoise kitchen, jazz, family and friends singing Hello, Dolly. I love red beans and rice--want to try this recipe.

Elvis Presley Kitchen at Graceland, Memphis, TN (1977) and Honeymoon Hideaway Kitchen in Palm Springs, CA (1960s) - visiting the kitchen was fun, but I really enjoyed the Elvis party that John and his wife hosted for fellow Elvis fans...meatloaf and fried peanut butter sandwiches for dessert. He said both were great.

Pearlstone Kitchen, Vancouver Island, BC (2016) - my dream kitchen - high on a cliff, looking out over the ocean. My dream lifestyle - harvesting everything you need from the earth, the ocean, and the air, all within a stone's throw of your home. Sort of full circle to where we started at Plymouth, but with modern conveniences!

As you can tell, I loved this book. Enjoyed the time travel, the recipes, the insights and observations, and the love of food, company, and conversation.

[Susie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a little torn between 3 and 4 stars. First of all, it was surprisingly good. It's not a book I would normally have chosen for myself. It was loaned to me by a friend of the author. I was starting to feel guilty about not having read it yet and finally got started. I liked the format: some history, some cooking, a letter summary of kitchen ideas to the wife. The sentences came across as choppy in places. I cringed a little at the "Namaste" but that is probably reflexive from the commercialized use of it by American yoga studios and pop culture items. I was curious about the author's claim that Greenes' and Wrights' buildings were more "Buddhist" than Japanese. Chinese, Korean, and Japanese Buddhist temples look distinctly different to me, so I am interested in finding out if those buildings look more like one temple than another. I also wondered if Canadian kitchens were not required to have fire extinguishers since he made a note to his wife to have one. I wanted to know what kind of macaroni and cheese they have in Canada because we make it how it was described in Monticello. Oh, and I was so curious about which country brought the bland "American" food! The US was still a young country in 1897...and the bland food was clearly not native. How did we get from delicious Pilgrim food to bland "American" food? I'm blaming England, but maybe Ireland is a contender. Ha! Was it influenced by what was available or poverty maybe? This book did make me ask a lot of questions, which I like in a book. It comes across as conversational and I would definitely recommend it if you like history and cooking. I went back and changed it from 3 stars to 4.

[Aleksa May · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really interesting and unique book. I wasn’t sure it’d find it enjoyable when I picked it up, it having come up in a word search for Georgia O’Keeffe

It’s a Wonderfully researched and written book - the lively conversation style is so entertaining, and adds colour and light to the stories being told.

As the title printed in dark red (hats off to the book designer) says ‘The Kitchen,’ is a look into kitchens old and new, with descriptions on design and layout, anecdotes, histories and stories of the people who used these kitchens. There are recipes and interesting and funny musings on what it would have been like to cook, eat and in the chapter on the Levine’s, who lived in a tenement on the Lower East Side of New York, lived, in these kitchens. The kitchens (and stories) of Georgia O’Keeffe in Abiquiu, Elvis Presley and Jennie and Harris Levine are my favourites in the book.

The author’s obviously delight at the places he has visited and the kitchens he has seen in this book is infectious (in a good way, wash your hands, wear a mask!) and it was a joy to read his words and see these kitchens through his eyes. The letters to his wife, Franny, to whom the book is dedicated, are adorable. I hope John and Franny are on their way to cooking up their dream kitchen! A delightful book. I just loved it!

[John Attard · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this vastly informative and wide-ranging fun read, the author is on a quest to find the perfect kitchen via an assortment of road trips to historical homes throughout North America. With an enthusiastic attention to detail as well as a delightfully personal, intimate style - such as letters to his wife while on the road - I was soon more than happy to go along for the ride.
Cooking in each as he goes along, Ota offers plenty of insights on what it was like cooking in kitchens in various times and places. With an engaging ability to speak knowledgeably about food, architecture, social norms, agriculture and history, the book is a buffet of information. But it is his personal reflections and introspections on issues such as class, race, empowerment, memory, and in particular family, that makes this such an enjoyable read. With its share of laugh-out- loud moments, Ota’s book makes cooking in historical homes lively and adventurous.
This is an enchanting, energetic book and would be of interest to anyone who enjoys reading about cooking, food, kitchen design, famous people, history, family and, oh yes, memories of things past.

[Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun, but informative read about the history of both the kitchen in terms of cooking and the kitchen in terms of architecture (as one would expect from an architect). The chapters were easy to read in a sitting, and I very much appreciated the author including historical recipes to give a real sense of place through the foods and tastes. As the author is Canadian, it was also interesting that he included several Canadian examples of historical kitchens that are accessible to visitors today (and kitchens i look forward visiting one day). The one thing I wish the author had done (but didn't) would be to include a summary of the best points from the various kitchens that he wanted to include in his ideal kitchen. Maybe the "kitchen reno" was a trope, but I would have been curious about what his final ideal kitchen resembled.

[Allison Howard · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was so taken with the concept of this book, loving both architecture and food, but was profoundly disappointed with the layout and quality of the photos. As I was reading, I was itching to get a good look at what each of the kitchens described looked like, but the photos are so dark and small as to be almost unrecognizable. They look like a bad quality photocopy. A book like this begs to have glossy photos to accompany the description of the famous kitchens, John Ota so creatively visited. Yes, of course the reader can look up the photos online but the lack of good photos cheapens the book considerably. John Ota had a great idea to visit these fabulously interesting places; it does a disservice to his ideas and his writing to house them in this plain, poorly presented book.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

I very much enjoyed this book, about an architect who tours famous kitchens for inspiration while designing his own perfect kitchen. Ota also cooks in the kitchens and expresses great sympathy for the enslaved and servants who worked in the historical homes. He has so much enthusiasm for the room and food, it was a fun book to listen to.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this very much! My husband works in new home construction, specifically in kitchen and bath design. His boss gifted him this audiobook for Christmas. It wasn't at all what he or I expected, but I enjoyed it very much!

I love hearing about the inner workings of people's lives, envisioning their homes and kitchens, and imagining the recreation of favorite dishes.

[Momo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sweet love letter to his wife, and an ode to his mother. I learned a lot and enjoyed how passionately Ota spoke about food, and design. I also appreciated the context of servants in these various kitchens and times.

[NoRa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very insightful.

[Jae Allen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well written, entertaining, humorous, informational and at times, mouth watering. A great way to explore the evolution of kitchens in North America.

[Janet Lee Chan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fun book. I wish there were more photos and in colour.