
Bee Wilson is the beloved food writer & historian who writes as the Kitchen Thinker in the Sunday Telegraph, & is the author of Swindled!. Her charming & original new book, Consider the Fork, explores how the implements we use in the kitchen have shaped the way we cook & live. A wooden spoon
- most trusty & loveable of kitchen implements
- looks like the opposite of 'technology', as the word is normally understood. But look closer. Is it oval or round? Does it have an extra-long handle to give your hand a place of greater safety from a hot skillet? Or a pointy bit at one side to get the lumpy bits in the corner of the pan? It took countless inventions to get to the well-equipped kitchens we have now, where our old low-tech spoon is joined by mixers, freezers & microwaves, but the story of human invention in the kitchen is largely unseen. Discovering the histories of our knives, ovens & kitchens themselves, Bee Wilson explores, among many other things, why the French & Chinese have such different cultures of the knife; & why Roman kitchens contain so many implements we recognize. Encompassing inventors, scientists, cooks & chefs, this is the previously unsung history of our kitchens.