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Why Do Italians Want to Put Kitchens In Basements?

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YaadPyar:
I love that anything goes on the anything goes forum!!  I'm not Italian, and would never want a basement kitchen either.   I'd love a kitchen with very high ceilings, lots of windows, and great ventilation.  I don't like cooking smells, and think a kitchen should be a separate part of the house. 

David - most folks in the midwest I know have either basements or cellars.  Growing up in Kansas that's where we always went during tornados.  The moms & kids would all go inb the basement/cellar, and the dads would all stand outside drinking beer & looking for tornados!

TJ:
Going OT here . . .

While I know that some Natives of Kansas, USA refer to it being a "mid-western state," historically speaking Kansas is Western State in the Central Plains. (During the school term, 1965-66, I taught in a small school system in Norwich, Kansas, 30 miles SW of Wichita. I taught art in the elementary building and to teach how to draw outdoor pictures with the sky in them, I had to take some of the boys and girls to the classroom window to show them that the blue color of the sky came all the way down to the ground in the distance. I never expected my students to be perfectly correct as artists, I just encouraged them to pay more attention to detail. I create another thread to discuss this.)

The historical "Mid-West" is actually EAST of the Mississippi River.

Some people also think that Oklahoma is a Southern State; but, there was no State of Oklahoma until 1907 and it was the 1st of the last South-Western Territories in the USA to become a state. New Mexico and Arizona became states in 1912.

The eastern side of Tulsa, Oklahoma is called "Tornado Alley" by the local old-timers. That's because the land is flatter on that side of town. Downtown Tulsa is actually up on high hill above the Arkansas River. But, there have been tornados all over the Tulsa Metro Area.

Oh, there are a number of town in Oklahoma which have more Italian-Americans than any other ethnic grouping. 

delalluvia:
Is it possible that the kitchen in the basement thing came about back in the days when having a kitchen stove/oven in the basement would lend itself to practicality in that it would help heat the upper floors (heat rises)?

Re: basements in general

I live in Texas.  50 million years ago or so there used to be an ocean on top of us.  Dig down far enough in Texas and you hit limestone.  Most people I know don't have basements at all.  At least not in the city.  Some country homes, people would dig down a little and have a 'root cellar' but it wasn't completely underground and sometimes a separate little building partially underground.

This is not a good thing when Texas also gets hit by tornados.  Best most people can do is hide in the bathtub.

CoyotePiper:
Its not just the Italians who do this. The Portuguese do too. I live in a predominantly Portuguese neighborhood here in Providence and lots of the old houses have a kitchen in the basement. Those kitchens get used heavily too, lots of cooking goes on.

As far as basements, here in New England every house has a basement. It is expected and you'd probably have a hard time selling a home without one. Only a cheap junk home would be on a slab.

I do some spec building in Florida where the opposite is true. Every house is built on a slab. Dig down a bit in Florida and you hit lime rock. If you ever get to visit Key West, visit the cemetary - all the graves are above ground. The ground is so hard that they can't dig it to bury the dead, so they bury them above ground in stone  boxes.

TJ:
I live in the "River Wood" area of "Western-South-Central" Tulsa, Oklahoma. It is next to the Arkansas River. My apartment complex is on a dead-end street off of S. Peoria Ave. On the East side of the complex are lots with two or more acres each and they are all zoned for horses. The house next to the complex uses city water for indoor use; but, for watering the place, a sand-point well is used. One does not have to drill down a whole lot of feet to the water table below.

Quite a few places along the river bottom have those wells. During periods of dry seasons, the city's rule is no watering. But, those who have the wells put up signs in their yards to show the source of the water they use to keep the lawns green.

In some of the older parts of Tulsa, people do have storm cellars to go to when it is tornado season.

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