katte 勝手
KEY WORD : architecture / 1 folk dwellings ; 2 tea houses
 
The term is believed to signify a place where one cooks food, kate wo kashigu 糧を炊ぐ, in use since the Kamakura period.

1 A space used to cook and prepare food in upper class residences, vernacular houses *minka 民家 and in middle ranking and lesser warrior residences, chuu/ka kyuu bushi juutaku 中/下級武士住宅 of the Edo period both in conjunction with and as an alternative to the kitchen *daidokoro 台所. In minka, the daidokoro was often a living room where the family ate and the katte was the true kitchen. It might also be the room where servants ate. The location of the katte varied, as did the daidokoro. The most common was at the rear part of the raised floor living rooms adjacent to the earthen-floored area *doma 土間. Other locations included: a platform that projected from the living rooms *ima 居間 (kyoshitsubu 居室部) into the rear part of the doma; the rear part of the doma itself, especially if screened from the front part by a partition; a *hiroma 広間 that extended the full cross-sectional depth of the house; and, for example in certain urban vernacular houses *machiya 町家 in Ishikawa prefecture, an enclosed cooking area at the lower end *shimote 下手 of the doma, detached from the rest of the kyoshitsubu. The characteristics of the katte likewise varied, but it often had a sunken hearth in the floor *irori 囲炉裏 and if not a doma, it usually had a plain boarded *itajiki 板敷 floor. Often prefixed with the honorific o お(御), okatte お勝手.

2 In tea houses *chashitsu 茶室, an alternative term for *mizuya 水屋, where food and water were prepared by the host.
 
 

 
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