Kitchen

Kitchen (O.E. cycene; this and other cognate forms, such as Dutch keuken, Ger. Küche, Dan. kökken, Fr. cuisine, are formed from the Low Lat. cucina, Lat. coquina, coquere, to cook), the room or place in a house set apart for cooking, in which the culinary and other domestic utensils are kept. The range or cooking-stove fitted with boiler for hot water, oven and other appliances, is often known as a “kitchener” (see Cookery and Heating). Archaeologists have used the term “kitchen-midden,” i.e. kitchen rubbish-heap (Danish kökken-mödding) for the rubbish heaps of prehistoric man, containing bones, remains of edible shell-fish, implements, &c. (see Shell-heaps). “Midden,” in Middle English mydding, is a Scandinavian word, from myg, muck, filth, and dyng, heap; the latter word gives the English “dung.”