Kitchen Report

I was a little reluctant to read a book about kitchen tools and gadgets, but Bee Wilson is an engaging writer who somehow delivers both wit and wisdom by rummaging through the history of cooking and eating utensils. My full review is posted on CSMonitor.com, but here’s how it begins:

Today’s home kitchens gleam with sub-zero chrome refrigerators, store ice cream and pastamakers behind cabinet doors, and display at least three kinds of appliances that purée or brew. Yet it is safe to surmise that even the best appointed also has at least one humble wooden spoon.

There is nothing fancy about a wooden spoon – no flashing lights or neon colors. And yet, as kitchen gadget fads come and go, nothing seems to replace the feel of a smooth wooden handle nestled in the palm stirring over a stovetop. Why is that?

Bee Wilson in her book, Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat, strives to answer this and other kitchen curiosities by tracing the evolution of kitchen technologies and the cultural influences that shaped them. “The foods we eat speak of the time and the place we inhabit,” writes Wilson. “But to an even greater extent, so do the tools we use to make and consume them.”

Read my full review of ‘Consider the Fork’ on CSMonitor.com

Related posts can be found under Books About Food