Flavours of the Past: Unveiling the Old style kathkuni kitchen🏡

Hello everyone 🛖
How are you?
I hope wherever you are, you are doing well 💘

There is a calmness about old architecture and houses. Whenever I visit these houses that have the same architecture as in the old times, I feel serene and peaceful. While there is lots of relaxation as well as facilities in the new type of architecture, there is something magical about living in old houses.

Last summer, I had the chance to live in my bui’s (my father’s sister) home. This beautiful house is located between the apple orchards and dense pine trees in the Jawalapur valley.

In this blog, I want to share an old-style Kathkuni kitchen found in our valley, which is becoming rare day by day. People are building modern types of architecture as well as modern kitchens these days, so it’s hard to find these types of kitchens.

The Kathkuni style houses are characterized by their use of various locally available materials such as mud, stones, woods like deodar and kail trees, and water. This type of architecture involves using alternate courses of wood and stone in the walls to create unique patterns with structural wooden materials at the corners. The flooring is done with mud on the ground floor, and on the second and third floors, it is done with various structural woods.

The most diverse and integral part of old-style architecture is the opening of the balconies. These act as JAROKHAS, which help in preventing heat loss. The balconies are used by the Pahadi people for sitting and relaxing.

The sloping pent and gable roof is made up of slate stone or shingle stone. The shingle stone helps in preventing strong wind from dislodging the roof. This kind of sloped terrace is used for efficient drainage of rainfall as well as snowfall.

The kitchen in the old kathkuni style houses are in the attic. For going to attic, you have to go through the stairs. These stairs are made from woods.

The kitchens of old-style are beautifully designed. The flooring is done with the help of wooden materials. The roof is made of slates which help in allowing a sufficient amount of light in the winter season. As the kitchen is located in the attic area, it is mostly warm during the cold winters, which helps in bearing the harsh cold winters.

The kitchen walls are also made up of stones and mud. Mud covering is applied to the entire walls of the kitchen. As there is the old-style chulha or stove in the old-style kitchen, which usually gets lit with the help of wood and fire, the walls of the kitchen become black. Then, we can reapply the mud covering to our walls, which is not only cost-effective but also efficient compared to the new paint method.

We use this old-style chulha for cooking as well as to keep ourselves warm in the winter with the help of fire. Even to this day, if we have an unplanned function in our village, we will set up a sasta chulha and then make various dishes on it with the help of wood.

There is a proper place or area for keeping the wood that is used for burning the stove, but Bui’s Kitchen doesn’t have that. That’s why they have kept it here

There is a shelf that is used to keep two containers. At another corner, there is a big tin, which is also like a container for storing various food materials. Then, there is one basket on the floor used for keeping vegetables.

The big shelf close to the roof is used for keeping various containers. These containers have various pulses, spices, and other food materials. There are also various big utensils kept on this shelf.

This is another shelf for keeping containers which have various spices.

This area is near sink to keep wet utensils in it. There is a dish rack that is used to keep the wet utensils in it. There is a pink bucket that is used for keeping water.

There is this old-style kitchen stand made with the help of wood. It is used for keeping the gas stove. The lower shelf is used for storage purposes. There is also an old-style broom and an old-style mat at the corner of the stand. These mat and broom are made from natural materials.

This is the sink area of the kitchen which is used for cleaning utensils. It is made up of cement and you can wash the utensils by sitting on the edges of the sink.

That's it for today's blog. I hope this blog gives you some insight regarding our kathkuni style kitchen.
Thank you for your precious time for reading my blog🤩

These photos are clicked by me by my Realme Gt me.
Sending you lots of love 💌
See you again in my next blog😻