Weird; I expected the most high-income kitchens to be either absent or completely unused. Don't nigh income individuals mostly rely on eating out and food delivery? As a digital nomad, I haven't cooked anything even once in most hotels/airbnbs I've lived at during the last 3 months.
That, in turn, sounds weird to me. I could easily afford not to cook, it doesn't have anything to do with money, and I definitely don't consider it a hobby either - I don't enjoy it particularly.
Making my own food allows me to eat exactly what I want, in the right amount, made from the right ingredients. It's also more healthy. If you want to get all abstract about it, it's also about keeping a culture of food alive that I grew up with.
I suspect your experience as a digital nomand isn't quite representative, and it probably also has a lot to do with where you're from originally...
The kitchen is considered the “heart of the home”, in the USA at least. The trend has been towards larger and more luxurious kitchens as they’re seen as the most used communal room and the centerpiece for entertaining.
So even if you don’t cook often you’ll see 48” ranges, counter depth fridges, and custom cabinetry and islands in high end homes.
It’s not uncommon for a modern luxury kitchen to cost more than most homes across the country.
American here. I happen to know some extreme high net worth individuals (incl. 1 billionaire). Anecdata, I haven’t personally seen a trend towards not cooking associated with wealth.
None of them have places that outright lack kitchens, that would be strange. Few of them shop for groceries though - the majority use eg Amazon Fresh
I completely agree with that. But this still means that cooking is more of a hobby, and people have a lot of very different ones — so my point about most (like 55%) of kitchen still stands, right?
There’s an income threshold where eating out/ordering in becomes viable as your main source of food. There’s another line where you can hire a full-time maid who’ll do the cooking for you in addition to other chores like cleaning.
Once you clear that second threshold, and especially if you have a family, it seems to me that most people prefer it over restaurant-centric eating. Also, if you’re used to prices in major tech hubs, it might surprise you how common it is that a full-time maid is much more affordable than eating out.
As a digital nomad you are probably able to live in places with a lower cost of living, but usually high salaries are in places with a high cost of living as well. This makes the price of eating out quite higher as well, often much more so than the cost of groceries.
Additionally, just because you can afford to eat out every meal doesn't mean you wouldn't rather do other things with your money (e.g. save to retire early).
Of course, if your income is high enough you might not even care about that, but I don't think this website covers such incomes (the highest kitchens I can see are $10k/month) and at that level you can probably pay someone to cook for you.
I used to barely cook when I lived small with a shitty kitchen (because it was so annoying and depressing), once I got a good job and could afford a nice place with a big kitchen, it suddenly become a lot more enjoyable to make my own food.
