Staff Book and Media Recommendations

Kirsten Davis is an Application Administrator I at the University of Central Oklahoma.

Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat

Bee Wilson

It's been ages since I enjoyed a nonfiction book nearly so much as this wide-ranging history of cooking. Not of food, mind you--and you'll find no recipes here--but of the technology of cooking  itself. With chapters with such titles as Fire, Ice, and Measure, Consider the Fork shows not just how we cook, but why we cook the way we do. For example, on why European and Chinese knives are part and parcel of their respective cuisines, and the cultures they come out of, Wilson says, in part, this:

"The primary function of a knife is to cut; but the secondary question has always been how to tame the knife's cutting power. The Chinese did it by confining their knife work to the kitchen, reducing food to bite-sized pieces with a massive cleaverlike instrument, out of sight. Europeans did it, first, by creating elaborate rules about the use of the knife at table--the subtext of all table manners is the fear that the man next to you may pull his knife on you--and second, by   Inventing 'table knives' so blunt and  feeble that you would struggle to use them to cut people instead of food."

From early whole roast game to modern frozen foods, Wilson covers a large swath of the most common food-centered technologies. Reading this book will give you a new eye when looking at your own kitchen--a room full of everything from pre-medieval utensils to your newest gadget.

Reviewed November 2014