Who hasn’t watched a period drama and thought how great it would be to have lived then? Well it might have been, until it was your turn to wash up. The advances in labour-saving kitchen gadgets since the era of Downton Abbey have given everyone more spare time. Admittedly, the advances in mobile phones we can play games on have taken it all back again, but that’s a different story.
The kitchen has changed utterly since the beginning of the last century. No longer tucked away, it’s more often an open-plan central living space in our homes where families congregate. It is also the room that people often renovate first to put their stamp on things. And with so much amazing gadgetry coming on to the market, it’s usually a good place to spend your hard-earned cash to give it the polish it deserves.
Smart kitchen kit
So what will the family kitchen of the future look like? The much-vaunted “internet of things” will revolutionise kitchens perhaps more than any other room. Fridges will know when you’re running low on milk, say, and order staples automatically using weight sensors or barcode readers.
“I can see that we will split our shopping between the things we need – tins and toilet rolls – and the things we desire – the smoked paprika, the 28-day-aged beef,” says Tom Cheesewright, the founder of Book of the Future, a consultancy that helps clients predict and apply future practice.
Other gadgets will be transformed too: kitchen scales will interact with online recipes and tell you when you’ve got that birthday cake mix right. Even apparently unimprovable items such as the frying pan are set for a makeover: intelligent pans know exactly when your food needs to be turned over and will let you know via your smartphone.
Touchscreens will become fully integrated and re-imagined as splashbacks or worktops on which to search for a recipe, chat to your mum or do your homework. And taps, cupboards and bins are likely to become gesture-operated, improving hygiene levels.
Food for thought
But might the things we eat be about to change, too? Cheesewright suggests that with water potentially becoming an issue, locally produced food may get a lot more local. “People are experimenting with dishwasher-sized hydroponic units that have a drawers of herbs and salad fed with nutrients and light via a micro-controller system,” he says. People’s diets may also change he says, with a rise in vegetarianism as protein becomes harder to source.
Exciting times ahead for the family kitchen then – and not a scullery maid in sight.
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