Central Kitchen Buildings in 1910s and 1920s Finland: Food and the Differing Definitions of Home

ABSTRACT As a result of industrialization, urbanization, changes in housing conditions and design, the servant question, and the rise of home culture and nuclear family ideal, there was a need to rethink how household work was organized in early-twentieth-century Finland. One proposed solution was central kitchen buildings, which were apartment buildings that had a central kitchen where staff prepared meals for all the residents. I argue that the central kitchen system employed the principles of rationalization and cooperation in order to uphold existing class and gender hierarchies. The paper examines why this solution did not become more popular by contrasting the arguments put in favor of the system with how the system was organized in practice. The wider aim of this paper is to discuss the role played by meanings and practices related to food in definitions of home.