America’s Kitchens by Nancy Carlisle, Melinda Talbot Nasardinov & Jennifer Pustz

America’s Kitchens by Nancy Carlisle, Melinda Talbot Nasardinov & Jennifer Pustz

The kitchen-at times a harried work space and at others the sentimental heart of the home-has alway played an important role in our lives. This lavishly illustrated book tells the story of America's kitchens from New England hearths to Spanish colonial kitchens, from detached kitchens on plantations in the South to open plans of the 1950s suburbs, up to todays varied styles. America's Kitchens provides new insights into the technological and social changes that have taken place in this room and suggests why, for so many of us, the room still symbolizes warmth and comfort.

A curator for more than twenty years at Historic New England, NANCY CARLISLE works with some of the most important historic kitchens in the country and has written and lectured widely on the material culture of domestic life.

MELINDA TALBOT NASARDINOV, a former assistant curator at Historic New England, is a graduate of the Winterthur Program in Early American Culture and writes about American decorative arts and the history of domestic life.

Review Quotes:

"......Innovatively designed and lavishly illustrated with historic drawings, photographs and a fascinating array of ephemera from Historic New England's diverse collections, America's Kitchens describes what it was like to live with and work in kitchens that had none of the conveniences we take for granted. At the same time, the book analyzes the profound place of the kitchen in our own lives today."-- Kennebec Journal

"...Innovatively designed and lavishly illustrated with historic drawings, photographs, and a fascinating array of ephemera from Historic New England's diverse collections, America's Kitchens' describes what it was like to live with and work in kitchens that had none of the conveniences we take for granted. At the same time, the book analyzes the profound place of the kitchen in our own lives today..."--Antiques Journal

"...a compelling homage to the beloved room within the home that is central to our lives in so many respects...richly embellished with paintings, photographs and historic drawings..."-- Culinary History Enthusiasts of Wisconsin

"...It's the kitchen that's the most evocative room in the American household. The authors of America's Kitchens reaffirm that fact of national life in this fascinating compilation of words and images that trace the room's evolution from the hearth way of life in the colonies all the way to the granite-topped, open-plan kitchen extravaganzas of today...."-- The Culinary Times