Kitchen The kitchen is a mirror of social and cultural developments. It is not only where we prepare our food but also where we embrace a certain way of life, develop taste trends, and display our social status. TV shows, magazine apps, and social media foodblogs have turned food into a key lifestyle component.
Sometimes the home kitchen becomes a stage showcasing the latest technology. The high-tech or smart kitchen is a metaphor for our alienation from what we eat – for many people today, mostly processed convenience food. Where our food really comes from, how it is produced, how much labor and resources go into it all remain largely hidden from us as consumers. At the same time, we’ve also lost touch with the knowledge of how to prepare, preserve, and store food properly. This ignorance leads to one in eight food products that we purchase ending up in the household waste.
In the ideal kitchen of the future, we will practice do-it-yourself or do-it-together food preparation to ensure transparent and sustainable self-sufficiency. We will combine state-of-the-art technology with age-old knowledge about how food is best cultivated, prepared, and stored. In these new kitchens, which will ideally operate according to the principle of sustainable energy and waste management, the consumer becomes the producer.
Carolin Schulze, Falscher Hase or Bugs’ Bunny, © photo: Carolin Schulze
