Bee Wilson

The overriding impression of this book is that it is very, very British. Not entirely because of the reader, Alison Larkin (who is very British), or because of too much of an Anglo-centric focus in the history it covers (maybe a bit, but not enough to take issue with) – but mostly because of… well, there's the casual and frequent mention of kebabs and the *ahem* wrong use of "chips" and so on, but mostly it's the almost patronizing tone taken about the United States.

Everything was going show more along just fine – I was entertained and informed, always my favorite combination – till I hit the chapter on measurements. According to the author, the US is the only first-world country to inexplicably cling to the bizarre and impossibly inaccurate method of measurement standardized by Fanny Farmer, using cups and teaspoons and tablespoons. Everyone else in the civilized world, she says, measures by weight, which makes SO much more sense and is SO much more accurate.

While I have seen British recipes using weights (and skipped over most of them, not willing to do the work to find the website to help me convert them), I never realized that we are the lone rebels in the cooking world, resolutely measuring a quarter-cup of this and half a teaspoon of that. Interesting. As much as our method seems odd to Bee Wilson, weighing everything seems to me like a huge pain in the butt.

Seriously? The rest of the world weighs, say, a teaspoon of vanilla? How the heck does that work? And doesn't that dirty even more containers or utensils than our way? Doesn't it all take much longer, and where the heck do you stash a scale when you're not using it? I have no counter space as it is; the thought of going from cups-tossed-in-a-drawer to yet-another-appliance-on-the-counter gives me a headache. How big is the thing?

Now, what she says does make sense; I never thought about how different one cupful of whatever can be from the next, depending on a person's method of measurement and the kitchen's humidity and the phases of the moon. The way she tells it, we must be a land of flat cakes and rock-hard cookies and all around complete disasters in the kitchen.

But here's the thing. I've been baking since I was ten, and cooking since a few years after that, and - not to brag, just saying – I'd say 95% of everything I've made has come out just as I'd intended. I've had cheesecakes crack; I've had cookies spread more than I wanted; but every cake I've made has risen (not all as high as I'd like, but they all did rise), and so on. So, while it does make sense that my cupful may differ from yours, and mine today might differ from mine four years ago, and that baking requires exactitude in measuring … um. Sorry. My experience just doesn't bear it out. And you know what? It's not just me. I can't say I remember ever seeing a cooking show on the Food Network or PBS that featured a chef (or plain old cook) using a scale instead of measuring implements. Even the snobbier end of the spectrum, exemplified by Martha Stewart (no relation) and the Barefoot Contessa, use the same old cups and spoons – and so does America's Test Kitchen. If weighing was so very superior, I would expect Martha and Ina to insist upon it, and if ATK – whose primary concern is determining the best and most reliable way to do and make just about everything – doesn't … Then, Ms. Wilson (and Ms. Larkin), you can rid your voices of that tone of marveling condescension. In the end your method is different, not better.

So there.

(I feel constrained to add that one reason an individual baker using the cup-measurement system may achieve a level of consistency is experience. I know when a batter is a bit thin, and add more flour; if it's a bit too floury I know how to correct. There's a natural personal consistency that comes with using the same utensils and measuring devices all the time. And I know how to adjust flavor as I go along. I suppose that's the point of the whole scales-are-better-than-cups argument; my cookies probably aren't going to be the same as yours. I for one prefer it that way. Consistency is necessary for restaurant chains and trying to recreate Mom's scones or such, but otherwise? My cookies are my cookies, and yours are yours, and that's the way it should be.)

Speaking of tones of voice, for the most part Alison Larkin is an excellent narrator. There's a sense of humor to the book, and Ms. Larkin plumbs those depths quite nicely. She has a very pleasant voice, and a very pleasant accent, except … The only objection I have is when she reads a quote from an American writer (seriously, these two do not seem to see Americans as worth much respect) she switches into a pseudo-American accent which sounds more like mockery than a genuine attempt at dialect.

Anyway. Gripes aside, this is (as mentioned) an entertaining and informative exploration of how the preparation and consumption of food has evolved through the millennia. It's fascinating stuff, invaluable to a writer of period pieces, and just fun for those who, as I do, love to look more closely at everyday things. Well done. show less

Bee Wilson takes on an interesting premise - an examination of a variety of kitchen-related objects and the stories that these objects generate. She reminds us that certain objects in our lives hold meaning beyond their original intended use, a somewhat revolutionary idea in the ‘weed and purge’ era in which we live. The heart-shaped tin cited in the title refers to the cake tin she used to make her wedding cake and subsequent birthday cakes for her children. When we meet her, she is show more recently divorced, and the tin has become old and rusty with disuse. Short essays evolve from this first one, as she looks at everyday objects such as china, drinking glasses, salt shakers, washing up bowls (she is British) and even my own obsession, toast racks. She ties each of these objects with their meaning to the owner. Throughout the book, she weaves a narrative of recovery from a surprising divorce and her own mother’s last few years. I am a baker (for our businesses in Detroit) - I bake from my home - and I could relate to her feelings about the objects that surround her. I have a teacup collection given to me from my aunt that is special to me. My stainless steel mixing bowls are used almost every day of the week, and I’d have a hard time doing any of my work without them. As I said earlier, I have a thing for toast racks, ever since I got my first heart-shaped one a couple of decades ago. I never start the morning without it. This is one of those books whose message will linger with me for a while. Thanksgiving comes up this week. For the first time in year, I think I’ll pull out the family china. I don’t think I would have considered that without reading this book. show less

Fascinating. She points out in the introduction that of the many, many histories of food, very few look at the tools we've used - most focus on the development of agriculture, without mentioning the metates/mortar and pestles necessary to turn grain into something edible, for instance. She points out some things that are obvious once she's mentioned them - like that knives predated fire by many many years (thousands? Millions? Not sure). There's also things that are important factors that show more I'd never thought of - for instance, that the English "Roast Beef" food culture requires both pasturage for cattle (I knew that) and lots of woodland to supply firewood (I'd never thought of that). European food culture in the same period used much less fuel, because they didn't have as much - and Chinese food culture was and is designed to use very little fuel (food cut into small pieces, so that they can cook very quickly, for instance). And then the implications of those factors for table manners - the use of knives at the table, in particular. Later she discusses mechanical kitchen tools - stand mixers, food processors and the like, and how they again changed the food we ate and even our physical structure. Modern man has an overbite - your upper teeth overlap your lower ones. As recently as the 1800s, our teeth met edge to edge - because we had to bite off relatively tough food, and the scissors bite was more efficient for that. Nowadays, food is a lot softer (more thoroughly processed), and our teeth and jaws have altered to suit. The development of food preservation techniques, from canning to refrigeration, is the last subject - and again, as the tools changed, so did our food and our attitudes towards it. I quoted bits from the book to my family over and over as I was reading - fascinating stuff! I'll be rereading this, and I'll look for more by this author. show less

I am surprised to find myself wanting to so enthusiastically recommend a book about kitchen utensils and appliances. To be precise, the book is a history and anthropological look at the utensils and appliances we use for eating and for preparing food. I was so excited by the book because I found out so many interesting things in every chapter revealing how we live, how we eat and how what we eat affects us.

The book is well-written with a lively writing style. Each chapter is structured show more around one aspect of food preparation with explanations of utensils ranging from the prehistoric to the present day. Although the book has a Western focus, the author provides many international examples. The author's use of British terms does, however, take some time to get used to.

The book is not just another cook book or book for foodies. Instead, it should be interest to anyone interested in social history, the history of technology or anthropology. Rest assured that you do not need to a cook to enjoy the book. I offer my own laughable cooking skills as testimony that the book can be enjoyed by nearly anyone.

A very small selection of some of the most interesting facts include:

1) The invention of the cooking pot allowed prehistoric people who had lost their teeth to survive longer since it allowed dishes to be prepared that did not require chewing
2) In the early 19th century after the fork was invented there was a short period where people thought it was fashionable to eat soup with a fork.
3) In Victorian times, vegetables were much less tender then the varieties we have today so Victorian cookbooks called for boiling them much longer than what we would do today.
4) Early British cooking roasted large pieces of meat on spits for hours in front of open fires. This is in contrast to Chinese cooking on a wok using small pieces of meat. the author explains that the British method required tremendous amounts of fuel. The smaller pieces used in Chinese cooking cooked faster and required much less fuel.
5) The overbite modern Westerners have has only become common in the last 200-250 years. Before that people had an edge-to-edge bite where the teeth meet each other. One theory for why this occurred is how people started using knives to cut their meat into smaller bites.
6) Albert Einstein patented a design for a refrigerator.
7) A Victorian-era woman created an ice-cream making machine that outperforms modern ice cream machines. Unfortunately, it uses a toxic amount of zinc.
8) Many of the foods we enjoy today (e.g. marmalade, salami) were developed as a way to preserve food. If refrigeration had been developed a few centuries earlier, it is possible we would not have had those foods. show less