Consider the Fork, Bee Wilson
Consider the Fork, Bee Wilson
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Consider the Fork
A History of How We Cook and Eat

Author: Bee Wilson

Narrator: Bee Wilson

Unabridged: 13 hr 34 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 01/27/2026

Synopsis

Award-winning food writer Bee Wilson’s secret history of kitchens, showing how new technologies—from the fork to the microwave and beyond—have fundamentally shaped how and what we eat

“Like having a long dinner table discussion with a fascinating friend…. A pure joy to read.”—Los Angeles Times

Since prehistory, humans have braved sharp knives, fire, and grindstones to transform raw ingredients into something delicious—or at least edible. But these tools have also transformed how we consume, and how we think about, our food. In Consider the Fork, award-winning food writer Bee Wilson takes readers on a wonderful and witty tour of the evolution of cooking around the world, revealing the hidden history of objects we often take for granted. Technology in the kitchen does not just mean the Pacojets and sous-vide machines of the modern kitchen, but also the humbler tools of everyday cooking and eating: a wooden spoon and a skillet, chopsticks and forks. Blending history, science, and personal anecdotes, Wilson reveals how our culinary tools and tricks came to be and how their influence has shaped food culture today. The story of how we have tamed fire and ice and wielded whisks, spoons, and graters, all for the sake of putting food in our mouths, Consider the Fork is truly a book to savor.

About Bee Wilson

Bee Wilson is a food writer, historian, and author of three books, including Swindled: The Dark History of Food Fraud, from Poisoned Candy to Counterfeit Coffee and The Hive: The Story of the Honeybee and Us. She has been named BBC Radio's Food Writer of the Year and is a three-time Guild of Food Writers' Food Journalist of the Year. She holds a Ph.D. from Trinity College, Cambridge, and lives in Cambridge, England.

Reviews

Goodreads review by karen on April 13, 2020

i am making my way back into the land of reviewing.... i don't read a lot of nonfiction. but if i am really into the subject matter, i will take the plunge, and when it is narrative nonfiction, told with verve and humor, that makes it all the better. however, it turns out, i am more interested in foo......more

Goodreads review by Lois on November 18, 2013

Well, that was fun. Technology is defined properly here, in its broadest sense, from the discovery of fire and the first stone knives through some of the more arcane 21st Century gadgetry, with plenty of stops along the way. The practical cooking anecdotes unsurprisingly tend to the Anglo-centric; e......more

Goodreads review by Christina on October 21, 2012

An interesting history of all things cooking and kitchen, in the tradition of Bill Bryson's AT HOME. Wilson covers everything from taming fire to the adoption of table forks, with fascinating detours into topics like how the way we eat has affected orthodontia (we all have over-erupted incisors beca......more

Goodreads review by Alexandra on January 12, 2023

*3.7, rounded up* It is refreshing to take a look at food history in terms of technology and think about wooden spoons as tech innovations. “Traditional histories of technology do not pay much attention to food... But there is just as much invention in a nutcracker as in a bullet.” Amen to that! There......more

Quotes

"Reading [Consider the Fork] is like having a long dinner table discussion with a fascinating friend.... Leisurely but lively...a pure joy to read."—Los Angeles Times

"Delightful.... [An] ebulliently written and unobtrusively learned survey."—Harper's Magazine

"[A] sparkling...fascinating and entertaining book."—The Sunday Times (London)

"One part science, one part history, and a generous dash of fun."—Good Housekeeping

"Wilson's insouciant scholarship and companionable voice convince you she would be great fun to spend time with in the kitchen.... [She is] a congenial kitchen oracle."—New York Times Book Review

"Fluid yet engaging, just like a good conversation over a pan of sizzling vegetables."—New Republic

"The path from Stone Age flints to sous-vide machines whirs so smoothly that I found myself re-reading passages just to trace how the author managed to work in a Victorian copper batterie de cuisine along the way."—Washington Post

"A delightful compendium of the tools, techniques and cultures of cooking and eating. Be it a tong or a chopstick, a runcible spoon or a cleaver, Bee Wilson approaches it with loving curiosity and thoroughness."—Spectator (London)

"Wilson celebrates the unsung implements that have helped shape our diets through the centuries. After devouring this delightful mix of culinary science and history, you'll never take a whisk for granted again."—Parade

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