What's Covered:

• Social benefits of an ancestral, traditional kitchen

• Health benefits of cooking intentionally

• Tips to decide that this route is right for you

Ever wondered why artifacts from the early 20th century can be preserved through generations? Why vintage cars still run 50 years later? Why the first light bulb invented is still shining brightly and uninterrupted to this day, and you had to replace the bulbs in your bedroom two weeks ago?

It seems that with all of our technological advancements, we've been deluded to believe "new means better". The same goes for the modern kitchen. Sure, our beloved KitchenAid removes the drudgery of mixing and cutting and grinding by hand, but that doesn't mean that we can't make wiser and healthier decisions about what we use day-to-day. Here are 18 reasons to consider some old-world modifications in your modern kitchen without compromising your joy and while making it easier for you to cultivate a home full of traditions that are built to last.

1) Old-World Kitchens Produce More Old People

Longevity is a blessing from God, and the kitchen is where you collaborate with Him. Old-world kitchens produce more elders in communities all over the globe. Knowing the land you're on and how to use its resources can reward us with vitality and endurance, but it certainly goes deeper than just eating more fruits and veggies.

Industrialized nations have seen an epic increase in chronic diseases, while the countries that maintained an understanding of the art of a well-cooked meal are enjoying slower aging on the body and more robust strength in their later years. Who wouldn't want that?!

The benefits of an old-world kitchen are vast, mainly because of the many different methods of preparation, food choices, and tools used that allowed man to reap those benefits. For example, research has shown that if one were to regularly consume cultured dairy products, they'd experience lower cholesterol and build bone health protection. Whey, which you can make at home, is a traditional medicine used to keep your muscles young. One tablespoon of whey (not the powder) mixed into your water can help maintain elastic ligaments and moveable joints.

Homemade bone broths are used throughout South America, France, Italy, the Middle East, and Chinese, Japanese, and African traditions of cuisine, yet our American way of buying ingredients cheap, fast, and at a loss of quality has stunted this tradition and hurt our health. Traditional kitchens don't have to mean added stress, but rather they enrich the body and spirit for more joy-filled days under the sun and over the grave. Why not lean into that?

2) It Helps You Build Your House, Not Tear It Down

As traditional women, it's our duty and desire to build our homes with love and intention. The absolute best way to do this is by empowering yourself with the skills needed to craft a warm environment that looks, tastes, and smells like home.

A good home-cooked meal is what every restaurant chef aims to embody in their dish. The skill of a culinary artist is inspired by the many traditions of old-world cooking and meal preparation that have been passed down within various cultures.

When chefs occupy the kitchen, they do so with confidence and grace because they know what they're doing, and they love the revitalizing experience they're contributing to when serving guests. Your family members are your guests, your apron is your "chef's hat", and your Michelin star is the warm connections you reinforce every day with a meal well-made, food well-presented, and a job well done.

3) The Ancestral Kitchen Helps Your Children Develop Properly

There have been a number of shocking phenomena wherein the genetics of entire countries have mutated because of the shift in dietary provisions at home. Underdevelopment in certain areas can be observed, for example, in the inflation of dental corrections and orthodontics.

It's long been known that ultra-processed foods affect jaw development, oral hygiene, dental health, and even breathing habits in individuals. Bones have been discovered after centuries of body decomposition exposing a perfect array of straight teeth seated comfortably within their mouths. How can this be the case on a diet of ultra-high processed food and nutritional scams like cereal? It can't.

4) Ancestral Kitchens Create Less Waste

When you know more, you can do more. And that's exactly what happens when you learn the creative ways you can use your resources, especially when making things from scratch. In Iceland, whey is accumulated as a by-product of curd-making and left in barrels to ferment. There, whey is called syra, and it was either drunk with water or used to preserve food. In an old-world kitchen style, you always have more options to craft, preserve, and utilize what you have.

5) It Defies Politically Correct Modern Advice

Japanese people eat more cholesterol than Americans thanks to their love for seafood, yet they're ranked as having one of the most centenarians to date. Imagine that! If you're the type to enjoy learning more about your health and the food on your plate than you were taught in gym class, this is an amazing route to take.

You're always learning something new, and many things may challenge what you think you already know and expose you to more riveting discoveries. Science sure has helped us advance over time, but as we explored at the beginning, some old ways are certainly better for us than the new.

6) It Preserves Cultural Identity and Heritage

When you're in an ancestral-styled kitchen of your own, you're preserving your own traditions, ways, recipes, and cooking methods. You're passing down those traditions as tasty heirlooms to the generations after you. Stories such as "Like Water for Chocolate" express the beauty of shared traditions as a gift that keeps on giving. These kitchens not only preserve the ways of a culture, but also of the individuals that made it.

7) It Supports Self-Sufficiency and Food Sovereignty

When eggs were ripped off grocery store shelves in the 2020s, everyone felt it - well, almost everyone. With an ancestral kitchen, you know how to adapt, adjust, and prepare your home to be independent of fragile food supply chains. You adjust to baking without eggs when the better-quality eggs are re-called; you may even have a few chickens of your own if you're committed to that lifestyle.

Even if you're not, the wisdom that comes from a well-seasoned cast iron skillet or an egg-free cake recipe can take you much farther than any off-the-shelf solution. Sure, ancestral kitchens require a bit more elbow grease, but it gets to be because you have more options, not because you have fewer tools or ingredients.

8) It Maximizes Nutrient Bioavailability

Ancestral kitchens optimize tools and ingredients to get the most bang for each buck in nutrients. From fermented grains and bone broths to raw milk and cultured dairy products, you're making the most of your meals, snacks, and beverages for the extended vitality of your entire household. It makes it so much simpler to enjoy the benefits of what you consume without all the mental exhaustion found in daily decisions. Your cast-iron pots and skillets last for generations and provide the same amounts of beneficial iron in your meals every time.

9) It Provides Ritual and Rhythm in the Home

To prepare food the old way takes time, and thus it raises mealtime on a pedestal that shouldn't be broken just because you want a snack. In Jennifer L. Scott's "Lessons from Madame Chic," she outlines that her French host family expected the kitchen to be "closed" outside of mealtime together, whereas here in the States, our kitchens are always open. Even our floor plans communicate a never-ending conversation with the kitchen and the living areas.

There is no air of separation, and our rooms no longer have a sense of strict purpose. Sometimes this can be good, but an ancestral-styled kitchen can look like Madame Chic's French layout, where there is one way in and out, the doors aren't open just to casually snack, and the kitchen is truly the heart of the home.

With an ancestral kitchen, there is rhyme and reason in what you do, and your family can look forward to the work being done in there, because anticipation is building up for the food and the togetherness.

10) It Restores Inter-Generational Bonds

This environment encourages you to actively pass on recipes, traditions, strategies, and secret ingredients to your loved ones. Grandma's secret ingredient was never shared via text, I'd hope! Instead, we remember our family traditions because we watched our loved ones in the kitchen.

We gazed lovingly at them as their creative fire lit up, as Grandma masterfully eyeballed a measurement of this and that into the skillet. This is the blessed experience that humans have learned from; this is how things got passed on.

Whether it was a recipe or advice about how to handle that friend at school, that boy you like, or the neighborhood kids that bullied you, the kitchen was always the place for you to find peace. Your mealtimes were intergenerational as well, and the family dinner table still meant something.

11) It Teaches Reverence for Food

When you are handling your food preparation from scratch, you tend to gain a deep appreciation for what you have available to you. It takes so much to make that pasta, or that honey-glazed chicken and rice plate, or the stir-fry leftovers that you had for lunch. Every meal is a delicate blessing, and you start to realize how impossible it is to take a bite without feeling gratitude and peacefulness. Why wouldn't you want your kids to feel the same kind of connection with their food, gratitude, and reverence for the provision and sustenance? I bet you would.

12) It Connects Us to Seasonal Rhythms

The seasons are what break up the year for us. They mirror the different seasons of life and are experienced by all. Ancestral kitchens, where an old-world attention is paid to the seasons and their bounty, nourish us with a shared experience inside the home as well. When you eat seasonally, for example, you are collaborating with nature to create new memories, fresh meals, and decadent traditions to look forward to year after year. Sweet potato is great year-round, but there's something about a sweet potato pie or a pumpkin spice cookie in the fall that truly warms the soul.

13) Old-World Kitchens Are Heirloom Treasure Troves

How many heirlooms do you reckon you can find in a well-loved kitchen? I'd assume there are dozens. From linen napkins and fine china to cast-iron skillets and Dutch ovens, the possibilities are endless. You can preserve recipes as heirlooms and special tools.

For example, in Mexico, "tortilleras," women who preserve the treasured culinary tradition of making tortillas by hand, use a combination of hand kneading, a flat griddle called the comal to cook, and the metate to grind the maize into fine masa, which will be used to create the tortilla. The metate is a durable tool that, coupled with the mano, a rolling pin-like stone, is often passed down for generations. Tools like these are an art to create and an emblem of one's heritage and triumphant history.

14) It Revives Ancient Wisdom Lost to Industrial Food Systems

With our shelf-stable stored goods and highly processed food alternatives, our modern society has largely lost the restorative wisdom within handcrafted meals and homemade ingredients. Within the ancestral kitchen, this knowledge is preserved or reclaimed as a heritage that should never be abandoned.

15) It Invites Slow, Intentional Living

You can't quite rush traditional cooking methods. Many things, when made from scratch, require proper care to create and the right environment to cultivate. This sort of living forces you to move with confidence and peacefulness, certainty and curiosity. It is not rushed convenience but purposeful steadiness.

16) It Fosters Creativity Within Structure

Since you would be preparing your kitchen according to the seasonal availability of resources, you are naturally incentivized to think outside the box with what you create. It's wonderful because this is how new observances are found, and new traditions are enjoyed and experimented with. You get to maximize the experience of each season of life.

17) It Promotes Hospitality and Communion

When you've spent so much time making something wonderful in the kitchen, you'll want to share it. Sometimes that will mean with your household, and sometimes that can mean you opening your doors to neighbors and church community members. Pouring love and intentionality into your kitchen means pouring into your home. Practicing hospitality allows you to invite others into the peaceful ambience that you've cultivated so meticulously.

18) It Strengthens Homemaking as a Sacred Craft

So many people believe that homemaking isn't a job by itself, but that's only because we no longer have a universal standard of seeing it done well, with pure attention and grace.

Yes, there are skills that everyone should learn, but reducing the nurturing of a family home down to a set of skills and to-dos is not only demeaning to ourselves. We all deserve a peaceful home, a well-run personal oasis, and an aromatic kitchen spreading the scent of precious herbs and spices. Why not take that role as seriously as Christ does?

The scripture says, in Titus 2:3-5, that women should be taught "to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed." This is a grave responsibility for us as women, and one not to be taken as a sexist notion of feminine weakness. Rather, homemaking is a strength and a necessity.

There are so many more reasons to restore the ancestral kitchen, but some things are better to experience yourself. I hope that you enjoyed this list of 18 reasons why ancestral kitchens still matter. I even more anticipate that you'll subscribe to my newsletter so that I can share more practical tips, strategies, stories, and recipes from all around the world with you. Sign up below and get all of this sent straight to your inbox. I'm so glad that you're here, dear hummingbirds.

Feel free to share your favorite cultural tradition at parlorofcharms@gmail.com, and maybe I'll feature it in one of my upcoming discussions! Please send this article to a friend to invite them to the parlor.

Fly back soon, friends!

Destiny Charles is the founder and writer behind Parlor of Charms, a thoughtful online space devoted to the quiet beauty of home life, feminine traditions, and intentional living. With a background in fashion business, a love for the domestic arts, and a heart rooted in timeless values, Destiny writes to inspire modern women to rediscover the art of nurturing their homes with grace, care, and purpose.