The hard metal angles smash your carefully diced vegetables and the handle does not grip so companionably as you stir. In the age of stainless steel pans, it is perfectly possible to use a metal spoon for stirring without ruining your vessels, but to do so feels obscurely wrong. Tools are first adopted because they meet a certain need or solve a particular problem, but over time the utensils we feel happy using are mainly determined by culture. Above and beyond its functionality, however, we cook with wooden spoons because we always have. It is also a poor conductor of heat, which is why you can stir hot soup with a wooden spoon without burning your hand. It is nonreactive: you need not worry that it will leave a metallic taste or that its surface will degrade on contact with acidic citrus or tomatoes. ![]() Wood is nonabrasive and therefore gentle on pans-you can scrape away without fear of scarring the metal surface. The wooden spoon does not look particularly sophisticated-traditionally, it was given as a booby prize to the loser of a competition-but it has science on its side. We do not give it credit for the eggs it has scrambled, the chocolate it has helped to melt, the onions it has saved from burning with a quick twirl. The wooden spoon is a quiet ensemble player in so many meals that we take it for granted. And these in turn will affect the way this device enables you to cook. ![]() Countless decisions-economic and social as well as those pertaining to design and applied engineering-will have gone into the making of this object. Maybe the handle is extrashort, for a child to use, or extralong, to give your hand a position of greater safety from a hot skillet. Is it oval or round? Slotted or solid? Cupped or flat? Perhaps it has a pointy part on one side to get at the lumpy bits in the corner of the pan. Is it a workmanlike beech factory spoon or a denser maple wood or olive wood whittled by an artisan? Now look at the shape. There is nothing futuristic or shiny or clever about it.īut look closer at one of your wooden spoons (I’m assuming you have at least one, because I’ve never been in any kitchen that didn’t). It does not switch on and off or make funny noises. Read ExcerptĪ WOODEN SPOON-MOST TRUSTY AND LOVABLE OF KITCHEN implements-looks like the opposite of “technology,” as the word is normally understood. 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. 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. 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. ![]() ![]() 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. But these tools have also transformed how we consume, and how we think about, our food. Since prehistory, humans have braved sharp knives, fire, and grindstones to transform raw ingredients into something delicious - or at least edible. 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.
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