Bangladeshi culinary habits are rather odorous, and with increasingly compact dwellings, the lingering odours of food throughout the house have become almost inevitable. What smells nice on the dinner table may not have the same effect in the living room. Even a kitchen with generous windows cannot prevent the waft of “baagar” (caramelised onions) permeating through the household.
There is more than one way to prevent this problem from happening. One is to have high velocity ventilation fans that suck the kitchen air towards the outside. The other is to install a kitchen hood on top of stove units. Efficient hoods have a carbon filter panel that traps various odours, and almost all of them have a metal mesh panel that traps various particles, especially oily ones. A kitchen hood prevents the spread of grime in the kitchen, and its panels can be cleaned every couple of weeks by detaching and soaking them in soap water or a bit of ammonia.
Space permitting, the trend nowadays is to have two kitchens, an internal one with an oven and stove top for fancy cooking and baking, and an external one for the desi style of cooking that usually has only a dual gas burner. These two kitchens have clearly demarcated separations that prevent odours from seeping through, and this is the best way of preventing an odorous house.
