"There is no way for the French to understand the American habit of having such attractively furnished kitchens as not only to make it possible but pleasant to eat one's meals in them. To them a kitchen is a room in which a great deal of preparation for cooking, as well as the cooking, takes place. The walls of the kitchen are therefore covered with suspended pots and pans and kitchen utensils, and the tables have at least two mortars and pestles and endless bowls, graters and sieves in evidence. And all this without any disorder but lacking the taste that prevails in the other rooms of the home. Taste there undoubtedly is -- the cooking-culinary-gastronomic taste. It is a puzzlement to Americans."