The privileged tend to have multiple kitchens, even if they eat very little

That Prince William and his wife and son are to have two kitchens in their new royal apartment brings to the fore one of the most ill-matched Siamese twins of modern existence: swanky kitchens and stick-thin frames.

Time was when kitchens in homes were simple repositories of calorific delights, presided over by personages bent on putting flesh on bones. Now, the more expensive the kitchens, the more they are receptacles of gizmos and gadgetry rather than anything edible as those who can afford them also seem to have an aversion to indulgences.

But that has not turned them off kitchens. As recent chatter has revealed, the richer the people, the more the kitchens. There’s one to prepare formal dinners and one for more casual DIY meals, as the British royals seem to have opted for. There’s room for more. One for the staff, for instance, not to mention a few kitchenettes for easy access to midnight nibbles in sprawling homes.

There is no correlation between the incidence of multikitchen homes and the quantity of food being cooked and consumed within them, of course. However, at a time when exclusivity is becoming harder and harder to delineate — luxury homes already have them all, from walk-in closets to basement swimming pools — this William and Kate-inspired trend has a lot of potential.