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A review by ameyawarde
Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat by Bee Wilson
5.0
Micro-histories (I'm not sure if this technically counts as one, but it would be weird to think of this differently than other micro-histories I love (Like "Salt")) are probably my favorite genre (along with place-biography, so unsurprisingly I loved this. It's actually impressive, though, because the kitchen is an enormous source of stress for me. I have executive dysfunction (thanks, ADHD!) and a computerized cooking task is actually one of the ways it is gauged by researchers. So, I was a little hesitant to pick this up just because of all the stress I have surrounding the kitchen (for real, it's a lot), but my love of domestic history won out. I must admit I shuffled hesitantly into the kitchen several times to check out what kinds of pots and pans and veg peeler and other gadgets we had. I even thought, hesitantly, maybe... I will... food process something??? sometime?? Just to watch it, after reading so many pages extolling the cruisinart's wonders (maybe it will even be less scary than I remember it being if I put on our house's new set of ear defenders (sensory issues, too, so loud machines definitely add to kitchen stress).
My friends who have reviewed this before me all complained of the abrupt topic changes, but to me that seems normal for the genre... but again, ADHD, so maybe I'm misremembering. It works well for my brain though, and this was an enjoyable overview of so many different aspects of kitchen/gadget history, and I do feel it brings an extra dimension of knowledge to my extant interest in domestic history. I only wish it had covered more countries! But she did include Chinese history in a few sections, and a few mentions of Middle Eastern cooking, which I have to say is more inclusive than these types of books usually are. But I was surprised that India, as such a major and popular cuisine, wasn't mentioned, almost at all!
My friends who have reviewed this before me all complained of the abrupt topic changes, but to me that seems normal for the genre... but again, ADHD, so maybe I'm misremembering. It works well for my brain though, and this was an enjoyable overview of so many different aspects of kitchen/gadget history, and I do feel it brings an extra dimension of knowledge to my extant interest in domestic history. I only wish it had covered more countries! But she did include Chinese history in a few sections, and a few mentions of Middle Eastern cooking, which I have to say is more inclusive than these types of books usually are. But I was surprised that India, as such a major and popular cuisine, wasn't mentioned, almost at all!