Consider the Fork: How Technology Transforms the Way We Cook and Eat by Bee Wilson

Nov 16, 2012 karen rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: netgalley, eats

i am making my way back into the land of reviewing....

i don't read a lot of nonfiction. but if i am really into the subject matter, i will take the plunge, and when it is narrative nonfiction, told with verve and humor, that makes it all the better. however, it turns out, i am more interested in food itself than in the utensils and machines that facilitate food preparation and storage.

"Consider the fork is an exploration of the way the implements we use in the kitchen affect what we eat, how we...more

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Dec 07, 2012 Chris Lake rated it 5 of 5 stars

Fantastic and interesting book. Wilson does a great job demonstrating how the cooking technology we use emerged and how it has effected the food that we think of eating. Think of the fork, which we in the West now consider indispensable for consuming a meal. Yet, it has only been in common use since the 1700's or so. The spoon on the other hand, is almost universal in all cultures for millennia.

One other way she points out how technology has influenced out way of eating comes with the invention...more

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Oct 21, 2012 Christina Dudley rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: urbanfarmjunkie

An interesting history of all things cooking and kitchen, in the tradition of Bill Bryson's AT HOME. Wilson covers everything from taming fire to the adoption of table forks, with fascinating detours into topics like how the way we eat has affected orthodontia (we all have over-erupted incisors because we don't grab and tear meat with our front teeth anymore) and fear of new kitchen technologies (refrigeration raised eyebrows because then sellers could pass off old food as fresh). She discusses...more

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Jul 02, 2012 Beatnik Mary rated it 5 of 5 stars

http://www.cozylittlebookjournal.com/...

Consider the Fork is brilliant. It is not a history of what we eat but how we eat, which I found absolutely fascinating. Bee Wilson makes a strong argument that the utensils, cooking methods and table etiquette that we've developed over the millennia have shaped--and been shaped by--our individual cultures and have direct links to our food itself.
For instance, which came first--the Chinese stir-fry or the wok? The answer is both. Woks were developed to a...more http://www.cozylittlebookjournal.com/...

Consider the Fork is brilliant. It is not a history of what we eat but how we eat, which I found absolutely fascinating. Bee Wilson makes a strong argument that the utensils, cooking methods and table etiquette that we've developed over the millennia have shaped--and been shaped by--our individual cultures and have direct links to our food itself.
For instance, which came first--the Chinese stir-fry or the wok? The answer is both. Woks were developed to address a shortage of firewood and fuel. Cutting food into small, even pieces helps them cook faster and conserve energy. But the stir-fry and the wok are so linked to Chinese food culture it's hard to imagine Chinese food without them. And the other impact of wok cooking was that all knife work was done in the kitchen, not at the table, thus solving the age old question of how to make sure no one pulls a knife on you at dinner (one of the main concerns behind most British table etiquette). The British, on the other hand, had no such fuel shortage and were therefore able to slow roast meats for hours at a time, giving rise to one of England's most beloved culinary traditions--roast beef.
Bee Wilson gives a history of various aspects of food preparation, cooking and food storage that is so fascinating and detailed that it should be required reading for anyone writing historical fiction. Reading about typical late Victorian London kitchens had me thinking back to all of the novels I'd read from that time period (which is a lot) and reassessing how accurate they'd been.
Whenever my daughter sees a picture on the computer of a cover of a book I've been reading (usually when I'm updating this blog) she says, "Oh that's the only book you're reading!" I laugh and remind her that it's almost never the only book I'm reading. I usually have up to ten books on the go at a time, reading a chapter or two at a time of each, until I get close to the end of one and can't put it down. It's the reason I often write 2-3 book reviews at a time, because I've likely just finished reading more than one book. But for about two and a half days, this WAS the only book I was reading. I couldn't put it down! Any time I had a spare minute I knew I only wanted to read more about the history of colanders (not much change there) or table etiquette (a lot more changes there). My partner must have gotten sick of hearing things like, "You know that can opener you're using? Well did you know--"

Disclaimer: I received a digital galley of this book free from the publisher from NetGalley.com. I was not obliged to write a favourable review, or even any review at all. The opinions expressed are strictly my own.
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Mar 09, 2013 Bettie rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Libbeth

Shelves: food-glorious-food, fraudio, nonfiction, published-2012, under-1000-ratings, sciences, history

Narrated by Alison Larkin

~13 hours.

And interesting backdrop for my baking day.

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Jan 13, 2013 Jane rated it 3 of 5 stars

A cider owl? A turnspit dog? A water-powered egg whisk? This narrative of what we use to cook and eat takes you through some
historical - and hilarious - culinary dead ends. A great book for the true foodie, and an interesting perspective on cultural history.

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Mar 09, 2013 Melanie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: anthropology, food-culture, history, non-fiction

Very nerdy book (I liked!) discussing the history of different food technologies, from actual cooking (fire/stoves/ovens/microwaves) to knives and measuring (temp, quantity, and time... cook times used to be measured in prayers, for example) and gadgetry and eating itself. I want to suss out a Marshall ice cream maker as described in the chapter about ice and refrigeration, assuming some enterprising person doesn't resurrect it first (in which case I would BUY one, because five minute ice cream...more

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Apr 14, 2013 Amanda rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: food-things, non-fiction

What a pleasant, light, enjoyable book!

It is quite short, so rather than a deep look into the history of cooking, it gives small overviews of a number of implements and methods of cooking that were/are common across different cultures, often being developed separately, with some compare contrast between uses, and an interesting look on how functionally, many of these have changed over time.

I do wish that the book had gone a little more into African cooking, and cooking is utterly frozen-cold are...more

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Apr 14, 2013 Kirsti rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: cooking, food, history, nonfiction, science, tea-drinkers, technology

An elegantly written history of cooking. The author weaves in social history, technology, economics, anthropology, humor, and her own experience as a cook. The book is full of fascinating details, such as:

* We have stir-fry cuisine because there wasn't much firewood in Japan or in most of China. Think about it: If you don't have a lot of firewood, it makes sense to bank up the fire high so it will burn hot (though briefly), cut your food into small pieces, cook it in a big pan, and move it arou...more

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Apr 07, 2013 Bridget rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2013

4.5 stars. I was caught off guard by how much I liked this book. Jeremy read it before me, and mentioned skimming over the less interesting parts. By the time I was reading the book, I was asking him, "WHAT less interesting parts??" It is ALL interesting, at least if you a) spend time in the kitchen and b) have ever wondered about the history of cooking and the tools we use to do it.

To get a feel for whether you might be interested in this book, you can read this article by Megan McArdle from a...more

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Mar 24, 2013 Emily rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Joanna

Shelves: 2013, nonfiction

This has been described as a microhistory about kitchen tools, but I think that's severely underselling it. While the chapters do coalesce around technologies like refrigeration or mechanical grinding, this is also a series of essays on domestic traditions surrounding food (who cooks it, for whom, at what time of day...?) and an exploration of style (what kinds of foods were seen as desirable and how did people make them?).

For example, one of the best chapters has to do with food texture, descr...more

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Jan 04, 2013 Olga Godim rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

This review was originally published at StoryCircleBookReviews:
http://www.storycirclebookreviews.org...

This is a fascinating book, taking us on a journey around the globe and across millennia. The author explores the history of domestic kitchen, its appliances and utensils, some of which have persisted for centuries while others are long forgotten.
According to Wilson, kitchen utensils are part of our culture. How we cook and eat often determines who and what we are, at least to a degree. Writt...more This review was originally published at StoryCircleBookReviews:
http://www.storycirclebookreviews.org...

This is a fascinating book, taking us on a journey around the globe and across millennia. The author explores the history of domestic kitchen, its appliances and utensils, some of which have persisted for centuries while others are long forgotten.
According to Wilson, kitchen utensils are part of our culture. How we cook and eat often determines who and what we are, at least to a degree. Written in a clear, precise language, with abundant examples, the book draws from the author’s profound knowledge of the field of food, empathized by her exhaustive research. Her passion for cooking also leaks to the pages, making this nonfiction volume wonderfully captivating.
The book is divided into chapters, each highlighting one aspect of food preparation: from its ancient beginning through technical and social innovations to the kitchens of today. The first chapter is dedicated to the kitchen pot.
No kitchen today exists without pots and pans. The pot is so essential to our kitchens, we often take it for granted, but in the beginning, the clay pot was one of the greatest inventions of humanity. The author insists that the emergence of pottery marked the first industrial revolution. Before the pot, people who couldn’t chew stringy meat roasted over a fire starved. When the first clay cooking vessels appeared about 6000 to 3000 BC, soft mushy food – soup or porridge – became available, thus allowing older people, people with no teeth, to survive. Besides extending our life expectancy, the pot also marked a switch from nomadic to settled life and from gathering-hunting to agriculture. A revolution indeed!
From pots, the author leads us to the other mandatory items in any kitchen – knives and fire. Both have been used in cooking for centuries, in one incarnation or another, despite their inherent damage potentials. Reading about the mankind’s quests to harness the kitchen fire – from an open hearth to an electric range – or about the society’s swinging attitude towards knives was almost as engrossing as a thriller.
The author’s food-wise erudition sparkles, as she not only provided us with serious historical overviews and gastronomical mysteries but also shares come amusing tidbits of information. For example, is it possible that our perfect overbite, which the dentists insist upon, is not the natural teeth position but instead the result of a knife’s work in a kitchen? Anthropological studies Wilson mentions suggest that it is so. If we still tore meat from bones with our teeth, as our ancestors did, our teeth would meet edge to edge, and the overbite wouldn’t have developed. It’s not an evolutionary mutation but a habitual feature of the human face, like calluses.
Surprisingly, the funniest section of the book involves a rather dry topic – measurements. We all measure ingredients when we cook, Wilson says, but only Americans traditionally measure in cups. How much is a cup anyway? There are bigger cups and smaller cups. Clever Europeans avoid such confusion by measuring weight. Does it really matter? After all, our grannies didn’t always have kitchen scales; they measured in handfuls or, the terror of terrors for a young cook: ‘as much as it takes.’ But their cakes were always good.
Gleaning her facts from historical tractates and memoirs, housewives’ magazines and culinary mores, Wilson’s created an engaging story about our food and people who prepare it. Food staples and obsolete cooking methods, the molecular physics of cooking and the social changes inspired by new technologies, cooks’ traditional mistrust of innovations and the eating etiquette – they all found their way into her book.
The only fault I found with this book is its lack of photographs. I wouldn’t mind seeing some of the outdated kitchen gadgets Wilson talks about or the new ones. The few pencil sketches sprinkled among the pages don’t make a good substitution.
Otherwise, almost perfect and highly recommended.
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Nov 13, 2012 Karen rated it 3 of 5 stars

If you want a scholarly, in-depth examination of the history of cooking methods and utensils, there are probably other books out there better than this one. But if all you want is a readable briefing on the subject, this book will do the trick.

The author uses a mixture of historical evidence and personal anecdotes to show us how our eating utensils came to be and how they have evolved over time. Some of the information she presents is fascinating, such as the fact that how we cut our food may a...more

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Nov 04, 2012 Brian T rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is my kind of book! Then again, I don't know a bunch of people that have read full-length narratives regarding: Cod, Potatoes, Tomatoes, Coffee, Sugar, Salt, Spices and Mad Cow Disease.

This book is full of wonderful anecdotes about cooking appliances both old and new that seem both inspired and ludicrous, sometimes at the same time, depending on the perceptions of the user. Some people want every conceivable appliance. Some people believe in the old adage that "less is more". In truth, both...more

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Oct 16, 2012 Tina rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a delightful traipse through the story of how we prepare, cook and eat our food. Pots and pans : with rice cooker -- Knife : with mezzaluna -- Fire : with toaster -- Measure : with egg timer -- Grind : with nutmeg grater -- Eat : with tongs -- Ice : with moulds -- Kitchen : with coffee. These are the Chapters in this elegant and very readable journey through the history of our gathering, preparing and consumption of food. A perfect Weekend Cooking subject.

The author has done quite a thor...more

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Sep 03, 2012 Darren rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: cookery-food, gen-ebooks

�Technological and industrial development in the past couple of hundred years has led to great changes in our kitchens. Some of them have, without a doubt, been capable of great things and a reason for change yet some of the other gadgets and doo-dahs might be more faddish or even just plain useless. For every really new innovation in time, such as the microwave oven there are countless other “new” items that are, perhaps, far from new and just something repackaged from an earlier time!
In “Consi...more �Technological and industrial development in the past couple of hundred years has led to great changes in our kitchens. Some of them have, without a doubt, been capable of great things and a reason for change yet some of the other gadgets and doo-dahs might be more faddish or even just plain useless. For every really new innovation in time, such as the microwave oven there are countless other “new” items that are, perhaps, far from new and just something repackaged from an earlier time!
In “Consider the Fork” food writer Bee Wilson looks at mankind’s relationship with their kitchen tools and equipment and wonders whether overall has there really been so little change. Of course, you will say, there has been change and many new products but are these really that new and revolutionary, rather than being an evolution on a theme. After that, just how much time and trouble do many of today’s “time-saving” gadgets really save?
Starting with a fairly simple item, the wooden spoon, Wilson has the reader thinking just how different the wooden spoon can be compared to another one. The wood used to manufacture it, its grain, its shape, size and form can vary. Each minor change may change how we use the spoon within our cooking too. And this is before you consider, as the author has done, the science behind it! Styles of cooking and the tools used within them can be shaped too by society. The author highlights Chinese cuisine and notes how its knives, eating utensils and even the principle cooking styles are all shaped by a one-time shortage of fuel, leading to food. cut into small morsels, being quickly cooked and eaten with chopsticks – something not renowned for their cutting ability.
To look at a typical magazine today you might assume that all cooks follow the latest trends and fads. It is clear that there is no shortage of wonder-tools, doo-dahs and various bits and pieces that the manufacturers state are essential or highly-desirable to have. Yet cooks tend to fall back on their old favourites. Things that we take for granted today, such as the refrigerator, were initially eschewed by the ultra-conservative cooks at the time due to fears that it would change the fundamental essence of food. Now, in retrospective, they were right but for all of the wrong reasons. The refrigerator meant that you were less-likely to be cooking for sub-optimal, decaying produce.
This book continues to amuse, amaze, inform and inspire without even trying through its various chapters (pans and pans with rice cooker; knife with mezzaluna; fire with toaster; measure with egg timer; grind with nutmeg grater; eat with tongs; ice with moulds and kitchen with coffee). For a book that is crammed full of thought-provoking, educative material this is surpassingly easy to read. Too easy, in fact, as the time just flies by when you are reading and… well just don’t read this book while you have something on the stove top!
So top marks to the author for making a subject capable of being boring and dry a lively, interesting, more more more-sort of book. If you are an addicted cook you’ll love this book. Even casual, less enthusiastic folk cannot fail to find something to their tastes.

Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat, written by Bee Wilson and published by Perseus Books Group/Basic Books. ISBN 9780465021765, 336 pages. Typical price: USD27. YYYY.

// This review appeared in YUM.fi and is reproduced here in full with permission of YUM.fi. YUM.fi celebrates the worldwide diversity of food and drink, as presented through the humble book. Whether you call it a cookery book, cook book, recipe book or something else (in the language of your choice) YUM will provide you with news and reviews of the latest books on the marketplace. //(less)

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Jan 26, 2013 Melissa rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: food, history, non-fiction

I love food. Any type of food, and I love the gadgetry that comes with the preparation of food. Some new kind of blender? I want to see it. A trip through the antique store to check out old egg beaters and mandolines? I'm there. But I never really thought about some of the basic stuff, which this book explores.

The author takes eight chapters and breaks down certain kitchen sciences and inventions into histories. The chapters are as follows: Pots and Pans, Knife, Fire, Measure, Grind, Eat, Ice &...more I love food. Any type of food, and I love the gadgetry that comes with the preparation of food. Some new kind of blender? I want to see it. A trip through the antique store to check out old egg beaters and mandolines? I'm there. But I never really thought about some of the basic stuff, which this book explores.

The author takes eight chapters and breaks down certain kitchen sciences and inventions into histories. The chapters are as follows: Pots and Pans, Knife, Fire, Measure, Grind, Eat, Ice & Kitchen. Some of these titles are fairly simplistic. For instance, Ice encompasses not only Ice Boxes, but Ice Cream and modern refrigerators as well. And some of the others are explanatory, like Pots and Pans. Each take you on a history as far back as the gadget existed and brings it to the modern and the different types we use now. There are also little sections at the end of each chapter that explore a single type of gadget, like a nutmeg grater. Such things as measuring cups, spoons, and even ice cream makers are discussed. But even down to the explanation of the fork through history, there's a lot in this book that isn't readily available in other history books.

Gadgets are interesting. It is possible to have a kitchen filled with gadgets that only do one thing (like an avocado cutter) or to just have a few trusty tools like a knife and stove. Each of these approaches takes a different kind of cook just like modern vs. traditional cooking takes a different type of cook. And the author does mention the use of sous-vide and it's rising popularity. I'm actually intrigued by the concept myself but have no room for any additional gadgets, especially after my latest foray into a juicer (and as the simplistic would say, what was wrong with an old fashioned manual juicer). For this whole book to be about the most simplistic of cooking utensils though makes it different from a lot of others. There is no technique being discussed here, just a simple history of some things we take for granted.

The writing itself was kind of dry. While I eagerly wanted to learn more about kitchen history, I had a hard time just sitting down and reading this book in one sitting and had to break it up a bit. There's a lot of fascinating information here, but sometimes the minute details are a little too much, such as the listing on and on of different types of spoons the Victorians used. I might have been a little more interested if there was a picture of all these spoons, but when trying to picture them all in my head, they all looked remarkably like teaspoons to me. And I'm not trying to say there aren't any pictures in this book. There are a few illustrations scattered throughout the entire thing. But I feel that this book could have been made so much better by actual photographs. Maybe not of everything, but there was a lot in there that I could try to web search each time, but it would be preferable to have it right there on the page. It would have broken up the monotony of all the detail as well. Wilson does tell it with a warm voice, but it's more like listening to a senior citizen wax on eloquently about how they walked uphill to school in the snow both ways.

It is an interesting book if taken in small portions. There's a wealth of information to be had (and a want for a Marshall Ice Cream machine) and it did inspire me to visit Ivan Day's website ( a guy who cooks historically). This is a good read for a foodie or historian.

Consider the Fork
Copyright 2012
279 pages

Review by M. Reynard 2013

More of my reviews can be found at www.ifithaswords.blogspot.com (less)

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Nov 25, 2012 Éowyn rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

I don't know about you, but I can't say I've ever spent much time considering the fork - it's just one of those things we have in everyday life. Of course, some cultures would think about forks much less, as they don't use them at all! Bee Wilson takes us on a tour of the history of domestic cookery and the implements used. There is a good deal of focus on the West, but also lots of information about the different Eastern cultures and how their different approach to eating has a visible impact!

T...more

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Mar 28, 2013 Jodi rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Anyone who likes to cook/bake/eat

Recommended to Jodi by: Marika Chronister

Shelves: book-club-books, non-fiction

Interesting look at how the ways we eat have changed over the years! I definitely look at my kitchen differently now. I was shocked to learn that when people started using silverware, our jaws were changed forever - before using silverware, human teeth met up and down because using our mouths to tear meat off the bone pushed our upper jaw back over time. However, since we use silverware now, our upper jaw is an overbite! Wow!! I am also amazed that people refused to cook on a stove when it came...more Interesting look at how the ways we eat have changed over the years! I definitely look at my kitchen differently now. I was shocked to learn that when people started using silverware, our jaws were changed forever - before using silverware, human teeth met up and down because using our mouths to tear meat off the bone pushed our upper jaw back over time. However, since we use silverware now, our upper jaw is an overbite! Wow!! I am also amazed that people refused to cook on a stove when it came out! The stove has been around for less than 100 years!! Of course I knew that but to read about it and its reception at the beginning was fascinating. I also had to laugh when the author said that microwaves give off less radiation than sitting by a campfire - I have a friend who was scared to use her microwave during pregnancy but attended a few campfires! Hee! Hee! Reading about measurement in the kitchen was fascinating too - it was fun to read about the metric system and how the American coin system was based on a decimal system but yet, we didn't adopt it for other forms of measurement. I am a hard core measuring cup girl myself but the author really got me to think about this form of measurement and its shortcoming - it is familiar though and I doubt I'll ever change - which is the premise of the book - new technology is slow to take over because we are slow to accept change!! It was also amazing to read that the wire whisk is a relatively "new" invention with people as late 1800s using twigs tied together to whip eggs and doing it for 3 hours! I also had to laugh that forks were a "new" invention too with people thinking they looked too much like a devil's pitchfork. Also, the author pointed out that throughout much of history people used rounded bowls so a fork wasn't practical - so until flat plates became fashionable, a fork just didn't work! Of course, Italians learned early on that forks worked great for pasta!

I am glad to live in a time and culture that has a wide variety of options for me to use in the kitchen. I am also glad that I can have people around me when I cook and that I can do it because I enjoy it. This book made me consider that I could probably pare down what I have in my kitchen but it is always nice to have the proper tool for the proper job!!(less)

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Feb 17, 2013 Veronica rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

Any keen cook will enjoy this book I think -- I did. Each of the chapters deals with a single large topic -- knives, for example, or fire, and gives us an overview of it through the ages and across the world. Inevitably this means there's little in-depth information or deep analysis, but it can be interesting and thought-provoking. I think my favourite chapter was the one on knives, because I'd never really thought before about the fact that French, and by extension European, cooking prescribes...more

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May 10, 2013 Kam rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: food, historical, non-fiction

When one reads books about food, more often than not the book tackles the food, and the culture that produced it, and usually, this is enough for most readers. Whether one is reading a cook's memoir, or a travel writer's anecdotes, or even a cookbook, the book will likely primarily concern itself with the two things I just mentioned. There are also the micro-histories, books that cover the influence of a particular foodstuff on the course of history (there are excellent ones for beer and coffee...more

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May 05, 2013 Susan rated it 5 of 5 stars

This was a joy to read. The author has a light-hearted voice and an arbitrary but unfailingly appropriate sense of organization. She surveys, not what humans eat, but the technology used to prepare food. Her main focus is on how it's done in the home, but she explains those old kitchens with warm hearth and the hanging pans as where the servants worked to produce the meals their betters ate. She segways into restaurant cooking now and then too, particularly as it influences the home cook. Her or...more This was a joy to read. The author has a light-hearted voice and an arbitrary but unfailingly appropriate sense of organization. She surveys, not what humans eat, but the technology used to prepare food. Her main focus is on how it's done in the home, but she explains those old kitchens with warm hearth and the hanging pans as where the servants worked to produce the meals their betters ate. She segways into restaurant cooking now and then too, particularly as it influences the home cook. Her organization is tool-oriented: spoons, forks, knives, pans, heat sources, freezing, not forgetting peelers and whisks and Cuisinarts, even Sous Vide machines and Aeropress espresso makers.

On the way she touches on a wide variety of topics, mixing historical research, expert opinion and her own feelings on a wide variety of topics, all without ever losing the focus on food technology. I was entertained as well as informed. Nothing stuffy or academic here. She's British, by the way, and that informs her opinions but not too much. She's very knowledgeable about US food tools and habits too, and jumps around Europe with her examples, with France and then Italy coming next, though there are also sections on people who don't use spoons and forks—on chop sticks and on eating with one's fingers for example.

She's quite good on the current rage for the perfect kitchen, with space and provision for every possible tool. She hates islands. She also points out that kitchens usually contain features and tools from a wide variety times, historically as well as within one's own life, which is part of her objection to the "kitchen renovation" concept. I think she thinks one should "collect" one's kitchen over the years.

She's interesting on futuristic kitchens from the past too: a 1940s view designed to excite American women to put up with the last years of the war. And the Frankfurt kitchen designed by a woman not taken seriously because she was a communist, but which was actually very good. And the model kitchen of the Nixon-Khrushchev "kitchen debate".

I highly recommend this one. (less)

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Feb 01, 2013 Marks54 rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a history of kitchen gadgets. The book discusses how the items we take for granted in the kitchen were the product of specific times and situations and continue to be used because they remain useful while tools that are no longer useful are soon forgotten. It is a nice addition to a group of histories of household items - the screwdriver or salt - that encapsulate a lot of history.

The book is by a British food writer who was professionally trained in history. It is organized by topical c...more

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Mar 22, 2013 Lisa Kelsey rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: cookbook-food-writing

This book which examines the tools, gadgets, and spaces used to cook and preserve food, shows how much we take for granted and how relatively recently we have come to all our current conveniences. Preparing food was a grueling and even dangerous undertaking involving boiling cauldrons and unenclosed fires for most of human history, and preserving food was a little understood, almost mystical endeavor, learned not through science but through years of trial and error. But we are lucky, because if...more

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Nov 12, 2012 Heather rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: kindle-library-books

While I don't usually rate a book halfway through, this book will seriously have to screw up in the next hundred pages for me to give it any less than five stars. This is the most fun history book I've read since graduating, although the lack of footnotes stresses me out a little (I'm sure there are copious endnotes, since the author quotes quite a few sources). It's very readable. The book's organization is perfect for the subject: it divides cooking technologies into subsections (pots, knives,...more

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Jan 09, 2013 Margaret Sankey rated it 4 of 5 stars

Another reason to mourn the lost food class, this is a charming study of the rapidly changing way that western people cook and eat. Using person experience and dedicated re-enactors, Wilson tracks down people who explain the knowledge needed to be a good spit roaster and control the ancient technology of open hearth cooking, tracks the taming of dinner knives (Norbert Elias was right--the French took the inherent violence of eating off the table and hid it in the kitchen, along with the pointy o...more

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Apr 01, 2013 Matt Simmons rated it 4 of 5 stars

A highly entertaining book that provides a satisfying and intriguing history of the things we use to eat. But beyond this, Wilson's greatest achievement in this book is providing a straightforward, unpretentious exploration of technology itself.

Those of us who question technological progress--even as we use technologies--are often seen as hypocrites or crazies. Yet Wilson is able, somehow, to do just that sort of interrogation of technological progress, asking why we use the things we use, how...more

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Jan 19, 2013 Will rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: food, non-fiction

I enjoyed some of the information in this, but did find that the subject matter was so broad that it kind of had the same problems that a book written by a journalist summarizing a complicated subject has (rather than a book written by someone who actually knows a lot about that subject).

The whole bit about the tou (italics hers), referring to the Chinese cleaver, was a bit annoying, since tou is just the Cantonese pronunciation of 'dao'.

The super short chapters seemed like a way to work in mate...more

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Sep 09, 2012 Birgit rated it 5 of 5 stars

What did you have for breakfast today? Or more importantly how did you prepare it? I bet several kitchen appliances have been put to good use. Pans and knives, measuring and grinding, fire and ice (or rather, stove and fridge) - Consider The Fork by Bee Wilson isn't your ordinary guide into the history of food, but into the world of implements and technology inside the kitchen. It's not about what but how we eat, and if you find this to be a trivial topic, think again, because it's most certainl...more

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Feb 24, 2013 Tinika rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2013

Bee Wilson's book, Consider the Fork, looks at the technology behind kitchen tools - what we use to cook/eat with rather than what we eat. She lays out her basic thesis in the introduction: we "have been changed by kitchen technology - the how as well as the what" (p xvii); "the implements we use affect what we eat, how we eat." (p xii). The rest of the book is details but what great details. The tools range from the basic (knife, spoon, containment of fire) to the modern (sous-vide machines.) T...more

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