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Consider The Fork: How Technology Transforms The Way We Cook And Eat (2012)

by Bee Wilson(Favorite Author)

3.7 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

046502176X (ISBN13: 9780465021765)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Basic Books

review 1: Although at first I dismissed this book as somewhat "book-reporty," I eventually fell into the rhythm of the facts and quotes and information and started to appreciate the comprehensive nature of her research. I found myself spouting little facts about the history of kitchen utensils to my friends over dinner, or observing for the first time the peculiar way my significant other uses his fork (in the British manner, despite being born and bred American.)Overall, I grew to quite like this book while listening to it, and some of the sections--on forks and fridges, and the movement from roasting to oven cooking--were fascinating and I felt compelled to talk about them with people. There were dull sections that I wanted to cut out, but they were short enough to be tolerable. I... moret's rather like the author is painting a picture with lots of short, small strokes, and some land astray and most land well enough so that a pleasing image is eventually formed. The reader of the audiobook was very fun to listen to, particularly when doing an American accent for quotes, which was hilarious. I don't hear British people doing American accents very often and I found it quite funny.
review 2: I wish I wrote this book. It is not a history of food. It is a history of the technologies we use to cook and eat food. It is remarkable. The writing is expansive and pithy, rigorous and playful. The topics vary from knives to graters, fire to forks. The introduction should be required reading in every 'Introduction to technology' course on the planet.Bee Wilson does something very important - and very difficult - in this book. She reads expansive histories of masculinity, class, colonialism and war through a seemingly banal kitchen object. I will never see a spork in the same way.My favourite books are those that enable us to reflect on daily life, to unpick our assumptions and think rather than simply live. Bee Wilson lets us see the technology - and the thinking - in the tools with which we eat and cook.Recommended. It is terrific. less

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