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Consider the Fork
- A History of How We Cook and Eat
- Narrated by: Alison Larkin
- Length: 11 hrs and 30 mins
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Since prehistory, humans have braved the business ends of knives, scrapers, and mashers, all in the name of creating something delicious - or at least edible. In Consider the Fork, award-winning food writer and historian Bee Wilson traces the ancient lineage of our modern culinary tools, revealing the startling history of objects we often take for granted. Charting the evolution of technologies from the knife and fork to the gas range and the sous-vide cooker, Wilson offers unprecedented insights into how we've prepared and consumed food over the centuries - and how those basic acts have changed our societies, our diets, and our very selves.
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- By thurman r. on 02-09-22
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Super Sushi Ramen Express
- One Family's Journey Through the Belly of Japan
- By: Michael Booth
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Japan is arguably the preeminent food nation on earth, a Mecca for the world's greatest chefs, with more Michelin stars than any other country. The Japanese go to extraordinary lengths and expense to eat food that is marked both by its exquisite preparation and exotic content. Their creativity, dedication, and courage in the face of dishes such as cod sperm and octopus ice cream is only now beginning to be fully appreciated in the sushi and ramen-saturated West.
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Interesting material that's well-narrated
- By John S. on 11-09-16
By: Michael Booth
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Unprocessed
- My City-Dwelling Year of Reclaiming Real Food
- By: Megan Kimble
- Narrated by: Sarah Mollo-Christensen
- Length: 12 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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In January of 2012, Megan Kimble was a 26-year-old living in a small apartment without even a garden plot to her name. But she cared about where food came from, how it was made, and what it did to her body: so she decided to go an entire year without eating processed foods. Unprocessed is the narrative of Megan's extraordinary year, in which she milled wheat, extracted salt from the sea, milked a goat, slaughtered a sheep, and more - all while earning an income that fell well below the federal poverty line.
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Very insightful
- By Anonymous User on 01-10-21
By: Megan Kimble
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Lunch in Paris
- A Love Story, with Recipes
- By: Elizabeth Bard
- Narrated by: Ann Marie Lee
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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In Paris for a weekend visit, Elizabeth Bard sat down to lunch with a handsome Frenchman - and never went home again. Was it love at first sight? Or was it the way her knife slid effortlessly through her pavé au poivre, the steak's pink juices puddling into the buttery pepper sauce? Lunch in Paris is a memoir about a young American woman caught up in two passionate love affairs - one with her new beau, Gwendal, the other with French cuisine.
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ok to pass the time
- By Robin on 03-25-13
By: Elizabeth Bard
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The President’s Kitchen Cabinet
- The Story of the African Americans Who Have Fed Our First Families, from the Washingtons to the Obamas
- By: Adrian Miller
- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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James Beard award - winning author Adrian Miller vividly tells the stories of the African Americans who worked in the presidential food service as chefs, personal cooks, butlers, stewards, and servers for every First Family since George and Martha Washington. Miller brings together the names and words of more than 150 black men and women who played remarkable roles in unforgettable events in the nation's history.
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Disappointed
- By TS on 08-17-21
By: Adrian Miller
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High on the Hog
- A Culinary Journey from Africa to America
- By: Jessica B. Harris
- Narrated by: Jessica Harris
- Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Acclaimed cookbook author Jessica B. Harris weaves an utterly engaging history of African American cuisine, taking the listener on a harrowing journey from Africa across the Atlantic to America, and tracking the trials that the people and the food have undergone along the way. From chitlins and ham hocks to fried chicken and vegan soul, Harris celebrates the delicious and restorative foods of the African American experience and details how each came to form an important part of African American culture, history, and identity.
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more of a history lesson than a culinary book
- By Scott Johnson on 09-02-15
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Cod
- A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World
- By: Mark Kurlansky
- Narrated by: Richard M. Davidson
- Length: 7 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Talk about a fish story! New York Times and Harper's columnist Mark Kurlansky offers "history filtered through the gills of the fish trade." David McCullough, the historian behind John Adams, says Kurlansky's "charming tale" of a "seemingly improbable idea" will change the way people think of the fish and the history.
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Seven and a half hour about COD???
- By B. W. Larsen on 03-01-03
By: Mark Kurlansky
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Rice, Noodle, Fish
- Deep Travels Through Japan's Food Culture (Roads & Kingdoms Presents, Book 1)
- By: Matt Goulding
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 7 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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An innovative new take on the travel guide, Rice, Noodle, Fish decodes Japan's extraordinary food culture through a mix of in-depth narrative and insider advice. In this 5,000-mile journey through the noodle shops, tempura temples, and teahouses of Japan, Matt Goulding, cocreator of the enormously popular Eat This, Not That! book series, navigates the intersection between food, history, and culture, creating one of the most ambitious and complete books ever written about Japanese culinary culture from the Western perspective.
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Starts strong tapers off
- By Craig Bryan on 01-02-21
By: Matt Goulding
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The Blue Zones Solution
- Eating and Living Like the World's Healthiest People
- By: Dan Buettner
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Dan Buettner, the New York Times best-selling author of The Blue Zones, lays out a proven plan to maximize your health based on the practices of the world's healthiest people. For the first time, Buettner reveals how to transform your health using smart eating and lifestyle habits gleaned from new research on the diets, eating habits, and lifestyle practices of the communities he's identified as "Blue Zones"—those places with the world's longest-lived and thus healthiest people.
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Good Info, Well Presented
- By Soozzone on 06-29-15
By: Dan Buettner
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The Domestic Revolution
- How the Introduction of Coal into Victorian Homes Changed Everything
- By: Ruth Goodman
- Narrated by: Jennifer M. Dixon
- Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
No single invention epitomizes the Victorian era more than the black cast-iron range. Aware that the 21st-century has reduced it to a quaint relic, Ruth Goodman was determined to prove that the hot coal stove provided so much more than morning tea: It might even have kick-started the Industrial Revolution. Wielding the wit and passion seen in How to Be a Victorian, Goodman traces the tectonic shift from wood to coal in the mid-16th century - from sooty trials and errors during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I to the totally smog-clouded reign of Queen Victoria.
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Zombie Apocalypse
- By PeachPecan on 12-25-20
By: Ruth Goodman
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A Square Meal
- A Culinary History of the Great Depression
- By: Jane Ziegelman, Andrew Coe
- Narrated by: Susan Ericksen
- Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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The decade-long Great Depression, a period of shifts in the country's political and social landscape, forever changed the way America eats. Before 1929, America's relationship with food was defined by abundance. But the collapse of the economy, in both urban and rural America, left a quarter of all Americans out of work and undernourished - shattering long-held assumptions about the limitlessness of the national larder.
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Not entirely accurate title
- By Robert on 06-07-17
By: Jane Ziegelman, and others
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Really interesting! Little darker than I thought…
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Flawed, but worthwhile
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Overall really interesting and informative
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Salt
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More than SALT
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Slow, doesn't get to the point-20% info, 80% fluff
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Wealth of info I wish I knew before having kids..
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Overall really interesting and informative
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Wurgaft and White use vivid storytelling to bring food practices to life, weaving stories of Panamanian coffee growers, medieval women beer makers, and Japanese knife forgers. From the Venetian spice trade to the Columbian Exchange, from Roman garum to Vietnamese nuoc cham, Ways of Eating provides an absorbing account of world food history and anthropology. Migration, politics, and the dynamics of group identity all shape what we eat, and we can learn to trace these social forces from the plate to the kitchen, the factory, and the field.
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Will induce hunger
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The Domestic Revolution
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No single invention epitomizes the Victorian era more than the black cast-iron range. Aware that the 21st-century has reduced it to a quaint relic, Ruth Goodman was determined to prove that the hot coal stove provided so much more than morning tea: It might even have kick-started the Industrial Revolution. Wielding the wit and passion seen in How to Be a Victorian, Goodman traces the tectonic shift from wood to coal in the mid-16th century - from sooty trials and errors during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I to the totally smog-clouded reign of Queen Victoria.
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Zombie Apocalypse
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Ten Restaurants That Changed America
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Ten Restaurants That Changed America reveals how the history of our restaurants reflects nothing less than the history of America itself. Whether charting the rise of our love affair with Chinese food through San Francisco's the Mandarin, evoking the richness of Italian food through Mamma Leone's, or chronicling French haute cuisine through Henri Soulé's Le Pavillon, Paul Freedman uses each restaurant to tell a story of race and class, immigration and assimilation.
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Worthwhile listen, cringe-worthy pronunciations
- By Tag Christof on 09-01-20
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The Food Explorer
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Story
In the 19th century, American meals were about subsistence, not enjoyment. But as a new century approached, appetites broadened, and David Fairchild, a young botanist with an insatiable lust to explore and experience the world, set out in search of foods that would enrich the American farmer and enchant the American eater. Kale from Croatia, mangoes from India, and hops from Bavaria. Peaches from China, avocados from Chile, and pomegranates from Malta. But Fairchild's finds weren't just limited to food.
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Good book, but would like more detail.
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If Walls Could Talk
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Why did the flushing toilet take two centuries to catch on? Why did medieval people sleep sitting up? When were the two "dirty centuries?" Why did gas lighting cause Victorian ladies to faint? Why, for centuries, did rich people fear fruit?In her brilliantly and creatively researched book, Lucy Worsley takes us through the bedroom, bathroom, living room, and kitchen.
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Compelling.
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In early August 1889, César Ritz, a Swiss hotelier highly regarded for his exquisite taste, found himself at the Savoy Hotel in London. He had come at the request of Richard D'Oyly Carte, the financier of Gilbert & Sullivan's comic operas, who had modernized theater and was now looking to create the world's best hotel. D'Oyly Carte soon seduced Ritz to move to London with his team, which included Auguste Escoffier, the chef de cuisine known for his elevated, original dishes.
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Like Cesar Ritz, a real dandy
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Food: A Cultural Culinary History
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Eating is an indispensable human activity. As a result, whether we realize it or not, the drive to obtain food has been a major catalyst across all of history, from prehistoric times to the present. Epicure Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin said it best: "Gastronomy governs the whole life of man."
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One of my top 3 favorite courses!
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The Dish
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The Dish is a rollicking ride inside every aspect of a restaurant dish. Both a fascinating window onto our food systems, and a celebration of the unsung heroes of restaurants and the collaborative nature of professional kitchen work, The Dish will ensure that listeners never look at any restaurant meal the same way again.
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It was fine, just fine.
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American Cuisine
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Overall
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For centuries, skeptical foreigners - and even millions of Americans - have believed there was no such thing as American cuisine. In recent decades, hamburgers, hot dogs, and pizza have been thought to define the nation's palate. Not so, says food historian Paul Freedman, who demonstrates that there is an exuberant and diverse, if not always coherent, American cuisine that reflects the history of the nation itself.
By: Paul Freedman
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Culinary Reactions
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
When you're cooking, you're a chemist! Every time you follow or modify a recipe you are experimenting with acids and bases, emulsions and suspensions, gels and foams. In your kitchen you denature proteins, crystallize compounds, react enzymes with substrates, and nurture desired microbial life while suppressing harmful microbes. And unlike in a laboratory, you can eat your experiments to verify your hypotheses.
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Culinary Reactions - The Chemical Formulas to Cook
- By Vicente Gard on 06-06-19
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Sweetness and Power
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- By: Sidney W. Mintz
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- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In this eye-opening study, Sidney W. Mintz shows how Europeans and Americans transformed sugar from a rare foreign luxury to a commonplace necessity of modern life and how it changed the history of capitalism and industry. He discusses the production and consumption of sugar and reveals how closely interwoven sugar's origins are as a "slave" crop grown in Europe's tropical colonies, with its use first as an extravagant luxury for the aristocracy, then as a staple of the diet of the new industrial proletariat.
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Dated but still worthwhile
- By Acteon on 11-14-19
By: Sidney W. Mintz
What listeners say about Consider the Fork
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Nothing really matters
- 08-30-14
For the foodie/science geek/history buff in you
This is a fun read if you like
(1) cooking and being in the kitchen, and
(2) books that explain the origin of things as well as the science and relevant historical facts.
I do, so I thoroughly enjoyed it. The narrator's voice is also very pleasant to listen to. She made me laugh when she did her American and French accents.
Fun book, neat information, and great narration.
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73 people found this helpful
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- Nobody's business
- 03-31-14
Intriguing history of everyday utensils
This was a well-researched and well-presented book about the history of everyday utensils like the fork as well as appliances, kitchen designs, and almost anything pertaining to the preparation of food. Bee Wilson did an excellent job of presenting the material with interesting side notes about cultural changes that were created because of a change in the use of utensils or food preparation.
Anyone with an interest in anthropology will find this an invaluable resource. Wilson details the usage of utensils not only in terms of their actual intended use but also in terms of their symbolism to society. She explores the choice of chopsticks over the fork, various spoon designs, how an entire society developed an overbite because of their choice of eating utensil, how advertisements for kitchen design were used to encourage women in the United States during war years, why it was considered bad form or a sign of wealth and taste to use one utensil over another, how the KitchenAid stand mixer and the Cuisinart food processor forever changed the way we cook, and why the state of Georgia in the United States is a leading manufacturer of disposable chopsticks for China.
The narrator, Alison Larken, has a beautiful reading voice and rendered an exceptional performance.
For anyone looking for an action-packed thriller, this is not the book for you. For anyone interested in anthropology, technological advancements in kitchenware, or why you prefer to use chopsticks over a fork or a fork over chopsticks, grab this book. You will never see your fork, spoon, knife, or chopsticks the same, again.
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58 people found this helpful
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- Sean
- 10-24-12
You'll see your kitchen in a new light
The book is a collection of historical sketches about various cooking implements. Although neither exhaustive nor comprehensive it manages to entertain and inform.
There are many books on food history, but this is the first I've found on the history of pots, appliances and flatware. However, the author bites off a little more than she can chew and the writing becomes uneven and erratic. There are simply too many ingredients to do justice to all aspects of cookery.
You will not learn any recipes from the book, but you will never look at your kitchen the same way again. I learned many fascinating facts (like the fact that Europeans have only had an overbite for about 200 years) and new appreciation for medieval recipes like "beat the eggs enough to tire one or two people." She draws interesting conclusions about how our cultural beliefs shaped the instruments we use to prepare and eat our food. She even makes a convincing argument about how the fundamental differences in Eastern and Western culture play out at the dining table.
The reader delivers a solid performance in her British accent but she affects American, Southern and French accents for quotes. They are probably artistically authentic but they do not sit well in the ear.
Overall, I enjoyed the book but it has problems with organization and pacing.
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20 people found this helpful
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- GH
- 07-10-13
Great information if you play Trivail Pursuit
I have read a significant number of books of this ilk. I generally like the book. You lean about the history of this and that -- one of them being the fork. Although this book is packed with interesting information. There is nothing earth moving or should I should say cow moving. If you want to lean many numerous factoids, this is the book for you. For me it was just ok.
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15 people found this helpful
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- UnknownBeauty
- 02-13-15
Surprisingly riveting!
What a wonderfully weaved tale of technology, culture, and history! Bee Wilson looks at the developments of kitchen technology and their relationship to and impact on historical cultures. I thought this book would be one of novel little factoids about why things in the kitchen are as they are. It is that and so much more! From the cultural shaping of spoons and chopsticks to the reality (and often illusion) of female liberation in the kitchen, Wilson tells a fascinating tale about our cultural and technological history!
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13 people found this helpful
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- pmb
- 08-30-14
Great book marred occasionally by the narration
If you could sum up Consider the Fork in three words, what would they be?
Fascinating to read
What did you like best about this story?
It's detailed treatment of the subject.
What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?
Overall the narration was very well done with one critical flaw. Whenever the narrator would quote a French person or an American she would adopt a French or American accent. This enormously marred the experience. For a few reasons, first in the case of the French accent it made no sense. The person she was quoting wasn't speaking in English. Second, she didn't do this for all accents. Third she did try it once for a Chinese accent and ended up sounding like a bad Indian accent.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
The affected accents were **TERRIBLE**
Any additional comments?
This is a non-fiction piece not a interpretive piece of art. NO NO NO ACCENTS!
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11 people found this helpful
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- SamF.
- 10-31-16
One of my favorite books
What did you love best about Consider the Fork?
I listened to this book a while ago, but I still find myself repeating anecdotes and explaining things I learned. It kicked off a real interest in food history, and is a fun and enjoyable read. I've recommended it to friends who have enjoyed it as well. One of my favorite books ever. The narration is alright, not particularly memorable but sometimes that's a good thing--less grating than Larkin's narration of Wilson's next book.
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10 people found this helpful
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- W. Mahoney
- 07-08-17
When you come to a fork in the road...
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
Yes. A quality Reader and an interesting history of the "spoon" and then the "fork". Not a fiction, but a bit of trivia and science. Worth the listen, if you want something different from the usual fare on your plate. Have you ever stopped to consider what our Ancestors ate with? A sharp stick to start with maybe, but a some point, someone wanted to eat soup. :)
What was one of the most memorable moments of Consider the Fork?
The facts and those things that one rarely, if ever, thinks about.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
Laugh or Cry? No. Visualize, wonder and be amazed here and there? Yes
Any additional comments?
A story one may read, in bits and pieces, without worrying about the past chapters, and the plot!
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9 people found this helpful
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- Katherine Peterson
- 02-21-17
Great even for non-cooks
I detest cooking and I'd never given much thought to the history behind cooking implements, but this was a fascinating listen. It's well-researched and accessible, and you can tell Wilson had fun gathering material and constructing a narrative around the history. I'll probably listen to it more than once to pick up on details that slipped by the first time.
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7 people found this helpful
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- Gwenna Laithland
- 09-18-17
Informatively Whimsical
A great look at the evolution of cooking technology that blends history with a light humor and realistic examination of the role of cooking and the tools used to do so.
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6 people found this helpful