The kitchen was the room where most of the time was spent.
Inside of it, the fireplace took the most important place.The woman was considered the queen of it.
Close to the fireplace there was the oven, used to cook the bread and the "fornacelle" (a brickwork oven) where usually was placed a terracotta pan to prepare the ragout, to cook the meat of other food. The macaroni, the vegetables, the polenta and other food where cooked in the cauldron, placed on the fire, which was always stoked by logs or firewood, depending on seasons.
In winter, the best place near the fireplaced was reserved to the oldest.
The grandmother was assigned to control the cooking of food, and, while she was knitting, she also rocked the new-born babies. To warm up was also used the brazier, that was placed in the middle of the room or under the table, during the meals. The feet were laid on its edges to warm up.
In the coldest days, the children brought to school also smaller braziers.
On the fireplace were lined up many different items: lids and wood forks, the clock and the salt shaker, the pictures of saints and the oil-lamps.
In every kitchen there were also exposed copper items of different shape and size: vessels, ladles, baking pans, buckets, basins, etc plus frying pans of different size, the barley roaster, the plate rack. The sideboard, with the glass surrounded by photographs and holy pictures, contained the most valuable and less exposed to daily consumption sets of glasses, cutlery, terracotta plates and bowls, enamelled iron and alluminium plates.
In one corner of the kitchen there was the "conca" (copper container tipycal of Abruzzo), used to carry and to store the water drawn from the well or the fountain. In another corner there was the kneading trough, where the flour was worked to make the bread, and where it was stored.
In the middle of the room was placed a big table used for meals, it was the most useful piece of forniture: it was used to treat the flour, to gather the dough, to to roll out the sheet of pasta and to pass it on the "chitarra", to make the sweet things, etc.
Around the table and laid at the wall there were chairs with a woven straw seat and small chairs for the younger, with a hole for their physical need.
Hanging up the ceiling or on the wall there were dryers for cheese.