Book Read Free

Consider the Fork

Page 35

by Bee Wilson


  Knives

  anatomy of

  carbon steel and

  carving

  ceramic

  chef’s knives

  Chinese cuisine and

  Chinese tou

  chopsticks vs.

  culture and

  eating and

  English cuisine and

  fish and

  forks and

  French cuisine and

  functions of

  handles of

  history of

  iron and

  Italian cuisine and

  metal and

  mezzaluna

  personal

  purpose of

  safety and

  sharpness of

  skill and

  steel and

  stone and

  table knives

  table manners and

  taste and

  as technology

  Korea, Koreans

  Kranzberg, Melvin

  Krupp, Friedrich

  Kurti, Nicholas

  Kyushu University

  La Varenne

  Lamb, Charles

  Lawson, Nigella

  Le Creuset

  Le Cuisinier françois (La Varenne)

  Le Ménagier de Paris

  Leach, Helen M.

  Lear, Edward

  Lebanon

  Lemme, Chuck

  Lemons

  Levi, Jane

  Lévi-Strauss, Claude

  Light My Fire

  Lincoln, Mrs.

  London Times

  Louis XIII, King

  Lu Hsu

  Luau

  Lugbara people

  MacArthur, Douglas

  Macdonald, John

  Magimix

  Magna Carta

  Maillard reaction

  Manners

  Maori

  Marmalade

  Marquesas Islands

  Marsh, Albert

  Martino, Maestro

  Marx, Karl

  Mashers

  Mastering the Art of French Cooking (Child)

  Masters, Thomas

  May, Robert

  Mayans

  McArthur, Bill

  Measurement

  accuracy and

  analogy and

  attitudes toward

  consistency and

  conversions and

  convertibility and

  cookbooks and

  hand and

  heat and

  history of

  hyper-

  kitchen clocks and

  level measuring and

  modern

  precision and

  ratios and

  recipes and

  reproducibility and

  scales and

  science and

  shared imagery of

  standardization and

  tablespoon

  teaspoon

  thermometers and

  time and

  volume and

  weight and

  Winchester measure

  See also Measuring cups

  Measuring cups

  accuracy and

  level measuring and

  Pyrex

  See also Measurement

  Medieval era

  Melon ballers

  Mesopotamia

  Metal

  heat conduction and

  kitchen utensils and

  knives and

  pots and pans and

  spoons and

  technology and

  Metallurgy

  Mexico

  Mezzaluna

  Microwave Gourmet (Kafka)

  Microwave ovens

  culinary skills and

  family meals and

  fire, enclosing and

  skill and

  Middle Ages

  Middle East

  Milk

  Ming, Emperor

  Ministry of Food (television show)

  Mixers

  Mixing bowls

  Modernist Cuisine (Myhrvold, Young, and Bilet)

  Molds

  Molokhovets, Elena

  Moore, Thomas

  More Work for Mother (Cowan)

  Mortar and pestle

  Mortaria

  Mothers

  Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Managementi (Beeton)

  Mrs. Marshall’s Patent Freezer

  Mrs. Rorer’s New Cook Book (Rorer)

  Munters, Carl

  Myhrvold, Nathan

  Nakano, Yoshiko

  NASA. See National Aeronautics and Space Administration

  National Aeronautics and Space

  Administration (NASA)

  Native Americans

  Nazis

  New England

  The New Housekeeping (Frederick)

  A New System of Domestic Cooking (Rundell)

  New York Cooking Academy

  New York Times

  New Zealand

  Nigeria

  Nixon, Richard

  Nordwall, Joachim

  North Africa

  Nutmeg graters

  Obesity

  Old World

  Oldowans

  Oliver, Jamie

  One-pot meals

  Opera (Scappi)

  Orange juice

  Organic movement

  The Origin of Table Manners (Lévi-Strauss)

  Orthodontics

  Ovens

  cast iron

  charcoal

  coal and

  electric

  gas

  heat, measurement of and

  heat transfer and

  history of

  microwave

  pit

  resistance to

  OXO

  Pacojets

  Pakistan

  Pancakes

  Parloa, Maria

  Pasta

  Pasteur, Louis

  Peelers

  Persia

  Peter Damian, St.

  Petworth House, England

  PFOA

  Phidomageireion

  “The Physicist in the Kitchen” (Kurti)

  Pit cooking

  Plastic

  Poland

  Polynesians

  Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE)

  Popcorn

  Poplawski, Stephen J.

  Posidonius

  Post, Emily

  Pots

  purpose of

  Pots and pans

  agriculture and

  aluminum and

  boiling and

  casseroles

  cast iron

  cauldrons

  chicken brick

  clay and

  copper

  copper and

  dishwashing and

  enameled cast iron

  feelings about

  fish and

  fragments or shards of

  frying pans

  glass and

  heat conduction and

  heat transfer and

  history of

  ideal

  idealness and

  iron and

  lids and

  metal and

  in nature

  nonstick

  one-pot meals and

  sauce pans

  silver and

  stainless steel

  stewpans

  taste and

  technology and

  temperature uniformity and

  tin and

  Pottery

  boiling and

  cooking and

  culture and

  fragments or shards of

  Greek

  ideal pot and

  invention of

  process of creation of

  storage and

  as technology

  thermal shock and

  Pound cake

  Poverty

  Practical Housekeeping

  PTFE (polytetrafluourethylene)
/>
  Pyrex

  The Pyromaniac’s Cookbook

  Queen-like Closet (Wolley)

  Radiation

  Ramsay, Gordon

  Randolph, Mary

  Rayner, Louisa

  Recipes

  measurement and

  pot cooking and

  reproducibility and

  Refrigeration, refrigerators

  commercial

  design of

  electric

  food preservation and

  in the home

  ice manufacturing and

  methods of

  in nineteenth century

  as storage systems

  Renaissance

  Reproducibility

  Rice

  Rice cookers

  Richelieu, Cardinal

  Risotto

  Roasting

  Chinese cuisine and

  discovery of

  English cuisine and

  history of

  Roasting (continued)

  spit-

  technology of

  turnspits and

  Robot Coupe

  Roden, Claudia

  Rodgers, Judy

  Romans

  Rorer, Sarah Tyson

  Ruhlman, Michael

  Rumford, Count

  Rundell, Mrs.

  Russell, John

  Russia

  Sabatier

  Salamanders

  Samoa

  Samsung

  Sargent, John Singer

  Sauce pots

  Sauteing

  Scales

  Scappi, Bartolomeo

  Schutte-Lihotsky, Margarete

  Science

  culture and

  kitchens and

  measurement and

  wooden spoon and

  Science Museum, London

  Scots

  Scullery

  Scythians

  Seasoning

  Seneca

  Shakespeare, William

  Shellfish

  Sherbets

  Sierra Leone

  Silver

  Simmons, Amelia

  Sinclair, Upton

  Slater, Nigel

  Slavery

  Slicing

  Slow Food Movement

  Smith, Delia

  Smoke

  Sokolov, Ray

  Somerville, Thomas

  Sontheimer, Carl

  Sous-vide

  South Africa

  South America

  South Korea

  Soyer, Alexis

  Space food

  Spain

  Spatulas

  Spencer, Percy

  Spieler, Marlena

  Spit roasting

  Spit-roasting

  Splayd

  Spoons

  English cuisine and

  functions of

  history of

  metal

  proper use of

  silver

  teaspoons

  as technology

  trefoil

  trifid

  wooden

  wooden silicone

  Sporks

  Stainless steel

  heat conduction and

  knives and

  pots and pans and

  Starbucks

  Starr, Frederick

  Steel

  kitchen utensils and

  knives and

  pots and pans and

  Stewing

  Stone

  cutting tools and

  grinding tools and

  Stone Age

  Stone cooking

  Stowe, Harriet Beecher

  Strite, Charles

  Stuart era

  Sugar

  Sugg, William

  Sur la Table

  Sweden

  Syria

  Szilard, Leo

  Table knives

  Table manners

  forks and

  knives and

  Tannur

  Taste

  knives and

  pots and pans and

  Technological change

  resistance to

  types of

  Technology

  boiling and

  chopsticks as

  of cooking

  cooking and

  culture and

  of food

  food processing and

  forks as

  of kitchen

  kitchen utensils and

  knives and

  knives as

  pots and pans and

  Technology (continued)

  pottery as

  of roasting

  spoons as

  wooden spoon as

  Teeth

  Tefal company

  Teflon

  Tehuaca Valley, Central America

  Temperature uniformity

  Terhune, Mary Virginia

  Tetra Brik

  Tetra Pak

  Thailand

  Thermometers

  Thermomix

  Thermostats

  Third World

  This, Herve

  Thompson, Benjamin

  Tierra del Fuego

  Tilda

  Tin

  Toast

  Toasters

  Tongs

  Toshiba

  Tou

  Tou (Chinese knife)

  Toxicity

  Trevithick, Richard

  Troisgros, Pierre

  Tupperware

  Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Stowe)

  Van Ostade, Adriaen

  Vegetable peelers

  Vegetables

  boiling

  frozen foods and

  stone cooking and

  Verdun, Pierre

  Verrall, William

  Victoria, Queen

  Victorian era

  Visser, Margaret

  Von Platen, Baltzar

  Wall-E (film)

  Waring Blender

  Washington, George

  The Washington Post

  Waters, Alice

  Webster, Fletcher

  Webster, Thomas

  Weir, Robin

  Whakarewarewa

  “Where There Are Asians, There Are Rice Cookers” (Nakano)

  Whirlpool

  Whisks

  WHO. See World Health Organization

  Wilder, Laura Ingalls

  Wilkinson, John “Iron-Mad”

  Williams, Turner

  Williams, William Carlos

  Williams-Sonoma

  Woks

  Wolke, Robert L.

  Wolley, Hannah

  Women

  Wood

  Wood, Ken

  Wooden spoon

  Worde, Wynkyn de

  World Health Organization (WHO)

  World War I

  World War II

  Wrangham, Richard

  Wyeth, Nathaniel J.

  Yahgan

  Yan, Martin

  Yan-Kit So

  Yeates, Robert

  Yogurt

  Youl, Ellen

  Young, Chris

  Young, Mrs. H. M.

  Yugoslavia

  The Zuni Café Cookbook (Rodgers)

  1

  You might reply: because risotto needs to be starchy and creamy, whereas slippery pasta benefits from having some of its starch washed away in the water. But this still begs the question. Pasta can be delicious cooked risotto-style, particularly the small rice-shaped orzo, with the incremental addition of wine and stock. Equally, risotto-style rice can be very good with a single large addition of liquid at the beginning, as with paella.

  2

  If you look on the Internet, however, there are still a few knife-sharpening workshops that will sharpen anything from hunting knives to pizza wheels and food-processor blades.

  3

  His answer was that the “heat passes with much greater difficulty, or much slower, in stewed apples than in pure water.” Because heat cond
ucted slower in stewed apples, it took longer for it to cool down than hot water, hence, the problem of burned mouths when eating apple pie.

  4

  Technically, when we say “weight” we really ought to say “mass.” Weight refers to the force exerted on an object by gravity (w = mg, where m = mass and g = gravity). As such, the weight of a cup of flour on the moon would be very much less than on earth. Mass, by contrast, remains constant, regardless of environment: 100 g of flour is always 100 g. This is actually what we mean when we talk of “weight.” However, because this book is concerned with practical technology rather than pure science, I will continue, inaccurately, to use the word “weight” as it is commonly understood, as a synonym for mass.

  5

  Here’s a quick translation: spork = a spoon with added tines; splayd = a knife, fork, and spoon in one, consisting of a tined spoon with a sharpened edge; knork = a fork with the cutting power of a knife; spife = a spoon with a knife on the end (an example would be the plastic green kiwi spoons sold in kitchenware shops); sporf = an all-purpose term for any hybrid of spoon, fork, and knife.

  Copyright © 2012 by Bee Wilson

  Published by Basic Books,

  A Member of the Perseus Books Group

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever

  without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied

  in critical articles and reviews. For information, address Basic Books,

  250 West 57th Street, 15th Floor, New York, NY 10107.

  Books published by Basic Books are available at special discounts

  for bulk purchases in the United States by corporations, institutions, and

  other organizations. For more information, please contact the Special Markets

  Department at the Perseus Books Group, 2300 Chestnut Street,

  Suite 200, Philadelphia, PA 19103, or call (800) 810-4145,

  ext. 5000, or e-mail special.markets@perseusbooks.com.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Wilson, Bee.

  Consider the fork : a history of how we cook and eat /

  Bee Wilson ; with illustrations by Annabel Lee.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  eISBN : 978-0-465-03332-4

  1. Kitchen utensils—History. 2. Cooking—History.

  3. Dinners and dining—History. I. Title.

  TX656.W56 2012

  643’.3—dc23

  2012016283

 

 

 


‹ Prev