Consider the Fork

Consider the Fork tells the stories of the tools we have used over the years and over the world, from most durable, such as the wooden spoon, or the cooking pot, to the least, such as the 70s chicken brick or the Medieval cider owl, and on to the sous-vide machines and mind-boggling gadgets of today. In Bee Wilson's culinary journey she meets man who cooks everything on a Tudor-style open fire (including the best roast beef she has ever tasted), explores the symbolic power of the cauldron, the invention of the tin can, the origins of the fork in eleventh-century Byzantium and the simple joy of the chop stick.

Beyond this, she tells the story of how we human beings have been changed culturally and even physically by kitchen technology, and how our gizmos offer a fascinating glimpse into our preoccupations. This book shows how, sometimes, kitchen tools are simply a way of enhancing the pleasure of eating, and how they can also be a matter of life and death. Above all, it is about the joy of feeding ourselves, about the way the implements we use in the kitchen affect what we eat, how we eat, and what we feel about what we eat.