Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat Paperback – October 8, 2013

This is a fascinating book for anyone who cooks... or eats. It delves into the history of things we use to cook and eat, like pots and knives and grinding utensils of various types and forks and spoons . It considers the ways we cook like frying and boiling and making frozen food. We don't usually use terms like science and technology in connection with cooking and eating, but the author does fairly frequently, impressing me in way I had never considered with how these terms are and have been very applicable to this topic throughout history.The lore was varied and delightful. Did you know that Einstein invented a refrigerator? Or what is the origin of the old phrase "A pint's a pound"? Or that yummy yucca is toxic if eaten raw? Or why Europeans introduced such blunt table knives?This is a book I will be recommending to a lot of friends. Although there is a Reading Group Guide included, I do not really see this as a reading group book. However, my own book group will be reading it this month, and I may have to eat my words!

Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat by Bee Wilson is an interesting book on the history of the technology of cooking and eating. She is attempting to fill a perceived void in food history books: while there are plenty of books on the ingredients and recipes of history, there are very few books on the equipment used to prepare and eat those ingredients and recipes. While this book does fill this void in an informative and entertaining way, she has not closed off this void. Large portions of the book concern themselves with the technological changed wrought in the last 2 centuries, and the focus is very European (Asia seems to be reduced to the wok, the tou, chopsticks, and the electric rice cooker, and it's as if no technology is used in Africa at all). The book is fascinating to read -- it's only when looking back do the holes appear.The book's primary division is based on technology, not time or place. The first chapter discusses the history of pots and pans, the third "fire" (or heating technology), leaving the necessary interplay between what gets heated and how it gets heated to be somewhat split between the two chapters. The second chapter discusses knives and their evolution and use, including both table and kitchen usages, while the discussions of spoons and forks at the dinner table waits until chapter 6. Food preservation is mainly discussed in the chapter "Ice", which is mainly concerned about the changes brought about by the advent of refrigeration over the last 200 years -- which means canning, brining, smoking pickling, fermenting, drying, etc gets restricted to just a small handful of pages. It seems odd that a book on the history of cooking technology misses such a historically important aspect of the history of how we cooked and ate.While she mentions many times that the available technology shapes the foods eaten, and vice-versa, the discussion of individual technologies divorced from their overall context robs the ability to explore this interplay in detail. One rarely gets a sense of how meals were prepared and eaten at any particular place and time, nor how advances in one kitchen technology caused changes in others. This, I feel, was somewhat of a lost opportunity.All in all, it was a good read, but it left plenty of room for other books on the same topic.

In answer to Amazon's Questions: What did you like or dislike?: I liked the whole book. What did you use the product for?. I used the product for reading. If you want to know why Chinese food arrives chopped up into little pieces and English roasts look like slabs cut from an animal that's still half alive the answers are here. Hint It has to do with fuel economy, metallurgy and all that good stuff. I read the book a couple of years ago and I have to admit I forgot what forks are about. But I should refresh myself because, if this pandemic ever ends, it's something a person can talk about at any social dinner. Read" "Catching Fire" first. Fire is more important than utensils in the history of cuisine. Fire let us process high protein foods (animal flesh) and develop larger brains. The fork? Well, the fork has nothing to do with brain development. But the fork does not upset vegetarians or creationists, whereas 'Catching Fire' implies that we not only evolved but evolved to eat meat. Read both and enjoy.

If you enjoy cooking ....or just enjoy eating....this book is a fun and entertaining read. But it is also far more than that. Combining anthropology and archaeology this well researched and documented book reveals far more than the history of apparatus and how cooking has changed. I discovered this book while reading a novel in which one of the characters was reading the book. I am glad that I ordered it for myself. Despite its contents heavy on history and science it is eminently readable. I bought it for my daughter for Christmas thinking she would enjoy it. Decided to read it myself and am so glad that I did. Written by a British writer it has a European and British tilt but for me that makes it all the more interesting. I think you will be surprised at the breadth of knowledge imparted you would never have thought about and certainly never associated with cooking much less the apparatus used for cooking. Covering the history of various cooking tools, both those that work and those discarded anyone interested at all in the subject of food will find this a tasty read. If there were six stars I would give it to this book and can highly recommend it both to the culinary inclined, those interested in history as well as the general reader.