The Seven Aspects of an Open Kitchen
cocooking.
We’ve been playing the term for quite long now, and it has grown to withhold a larger meaning than just “cooking together.” The creative, mysterious, and friendly atmosphere that is achieved when a group of people cooks together is magical: spontaneous conversations endlessly emerge even if the group doesn’t know each other well, unexpected happenings drive people’s creativity and problem-solving skills, and by the end, the group ends up not only with an unique but delicious dish, but also with an unforgettable story that accompanies it.
In this sense, we see the kitchen as a lab, studio, and playground all in one. And with this view, we have been creating and experimenting with several methods, tools, and systems that would highlight these aspects of the kitchen. This kind of a special kitchen, we have given the name cocooking space. This is both a general name for a kind of social kitchen that we are imagining of and also a special idea for a space that we someday want to build.Through several prototypes of this kind of a social kitchen, we have found out that there exists certain principles that enforce the magical powers of cooking.
Below, I lay seven of them that we’ve discovered so far.
The Inclusive Kitchen: The kitchen should never be discriminating. Whether you are a Michelin-star chef or a college student whose signature dish is microwaved pasta, you all should be cooking together. Therefore, one of the biggest challenges will be to involve the diverse population of people into the. However, when this is overcome, the kitchen gains the power to become a central space where people of various sectors come visit and overlap.
The Creative Kitchen: Ideally improvised acts of cocooking should happen regularly and spontaneously. This kind of cocooking often becomes a very creative one since thinking how to make the most out of available ingredients is naturally a creative act. With hunger as a driver, ideas on what to eat and how to cook would generate without effort.
The Hungry Kitchen: Easily overlooked but possibly the most important. Appetite is the glue that holds the pieces of a social kitchen together. With hunger acting as a shared motivation, people will be attracted to the kitchen to satisfy their appetite, become creative, meet new people, have fun, and learn something new on a daily basis.
The Local Kitchen: A kitchen is the result of the interaction between the people, culture, ingredients, and foodways of the specific region. Not only should the place use locally produced items for its ingredients, but the different kinds of cooking that happen there should reflect the diversity of local needs and ideas. In this sense, no two cocooking space should be similar.
The Sustainable Kitchen: When it comes to food, sustainability and eco-friendliness is something we can never neglect. A kitchen best serves its purpose when sustainability is embedded into its system — for example, using locally and sustainability produced ingredients are a good place to start. In addition, reducing food waste is a huge topic to consider. This can start by for example using produce from farmers that potentially do not fit into the market due to its size or shape. Some practices can also be embedded into how the cooking is done: for example, making zero food waste a part of the rule (and using that rule to generate ideas on cooking with leftover ingredients).
The Educational Kitchen: Though it is not exactly desired for all kitchens to provide purely educational classes, learnings should be embedded throughout the person’s experience. Besides, food is a great entry point to almost all topics in our society — you can use your hunger as a motivation to discover and learn something new in a fun, social, and creative way.
The Playful Kitchen: The kitchen should be a place where people would want to visit just for the sake of it. Stated simply, cooking with people is a fun activity to do. Mixed with the joy of good food and socialization, the kitchen is essentially a playground where people can learn new things, eat locally, and contribute to a sustainable food cycle all in a fun way.
Though some kitchens are better candidates as others, in essence, any place (even if its not a place where people would normally call a kitchen) can serve as a cocooking space. What is more important is the users’ attitude of using it as one. In this sense, yes we see an increase in the number of open kitchen spaces in many communities and corporate buildings, but not all open kitchen spaces qualify as a cocooking space. If the kitchen is a place for only cooking addicts, for example, then it is not the ideal cocooking space.
Yes the idea of the cocooking space is an idealistic one. However, as we have been practicing, we are convinced that it can be achieved, even if it is a small start.The seven principles stated above are all factors that you can keep in mind when cooking in any situation for a creative yet humanistic style of food. Then some day, the idealistic cocooking space might just happen.
