"Food historian Bee Wilson delves deep into the latest research from food psychologists, neuroscientists, and nutritionists to reveal that our food habits are shaped by family and culture, memory and gender, hunger and love. We do not come into the world with an innate sense of taste or nutrition as omnivores: we have to learn how and what to eat, how sweet is too sweet, and what food will give us the most energy for the coming day. Drawing on the psychology of eating, she shows that it is possible, despite our dysfunctional food industry and habits, to feed ourselves better"--

An award-winning food writer reveals the secret history of kitchens, showing how technological innovations--from the mortar and pestle to the microwave and modern science--have shaped how and what people eat.

Ever since men first hunted for honeycomb in rocks and daubed pictures of it on cave walls, the honeybee has been seen as one of the wonders of nature: social, industrious, beautiful, terrifying. No other creature has inspired in humans an identification so passionate, persistent, or fantastical. The Hive recounts the astonishing tale of all the weird and wonderful things that humans believed about bees and their "society" over the ages. It ranges from the honey delta of ancient Egypt to the Tupelo forests of modern Florida, taking in a cast of characters including Alexander the Great and Napoleon, Sherlock Holmes and Muhammed Ali. The history of humans and honeybees is also a history of ideas, taking us through the evolution of science, religion, and politics, and a social history that explores the bee's impact on food and human ritual. In this beautifully illustrated book, Bee Wilson shows how humans will always view the hive as a miniature universe with order and purpose, and look to it to make sense of their own.

One of The New Yorker's Fifteen Essential Cookbooks • A New York Times, WBUR Here & Now, and National Post Best Cookbook of 2023 • An NPR 2023 "Books We Love" Pick • One of the Guardian UK's Five Best Food Books of 2023 A culinary companion to simplify cooking while making it more enjoyable, The Secret of Cooking is packed with solutions for how to make life in the kitchen work better for you, whether you’re cooking for yourself or for a crowd. Do you wish you could cook more, but don’t know where to start? Bee Wilson has spent years collecting cooking “secrets”: ways of speeding cooking up or slowing it down, strategies for days when you are stretched for time, and other ideas for when you can luxuriate in kitchen therapy. Bee holds out a hand to anyone who wants doable, delicious recipes, the kind of unfussy food that makes every day taste better: quick feasts from a can of beans; fast, medium, and slow ragus; and seven ways to cook a carrot. Alongside thoughts on how to cook when you’re alone, with children, or just plain tired, Bee offers 140 recipes including: the simplest chicken stew even the pickiest of eaters (aka children) will love Zucchini and Herb Fritters, a Grated Tomato and Butter Pasta Sauce (with or without shrimp), and other ways of making your box grater work for you salads to savor, like a tuna salad with anchovy dressing leisurely projects like an Aromatic All-Purpose Curry Powder and quicker food for friends (try Bulgar and Eggplant Pilaf with pistachio and lemon) the loveliest red curry sauce you can make in your instant pot universal desserts, or those gluten-free and dairy-free sweets that you can serve no matter who comes over, like a Vegan Pear, Lemon, and Ginger Cake With advice on seasoning, cleaning up, and choosing the best equipment, Wilson reimagines modern cooking and brings the spark back into everyday meals. As Bee says, “There’s still magic in the kitchen, if you know where to look.” Shall we cook?

An award-winning food writer takes us on a global tour of what the world eats--and shows us how we can change it for the better Food is one of life's great joys. So why has eating become such a source of anxiety and confusion? Bee Wilson shows that in two generations the world has undergone a massive shift from traditional, limited diets to more globalized ways of eating, from bubble tea to quinoa, from Soylent to meal kits. Paradoxically, our diets are getting healthier and less healthy at the same time. For some, there has never been a happier food era than today: a time of unusual herbs, farmers' markets, and internet recipe swaps. Yet modern food also kills--diabetes and heart disease are on the rise everywhere on earth. This is a book about the good, the terrible, and the avocado toast. A riveting exploration of the hidden forces behind what we eat, The Way We Eat Now explains how this food revolution has transformed our bodies, our social lives, and the world we live in.

The humble peanut butter and jelly or bologna and cheese or corned beef on rye—no matter your cooking expertise, chances are you’ve made and eaten countless sandwiches in your lifetime. It’s quick, it’s simple, and it’s open to infinite variety and inventiveness. If there’s something bread- or bun-like in your cupboard, there is a sandwich waiting to happen. Though sandwiches are a near-universal food, their origin can be traced to a very precise historical figure: John Montagu, the Fourth Earl of Sandwich, who, sometime before 1762 being too busy to stop for dinner, asked for some cold beef to be brought to him between two slices of bread. In Sandwich,award-winning food writer Bee Wilson unravels the mystery of how the Earl invented this most elementary but delicious way of eating. Wilson explores what sandwiches might have been like before the eighteenth century, why the name sandwich stuck, and how the Earl’s invention took off so quickly around the globe. Wilson brings together a wealth of material to trace how the sandwich has evolved, looking at sandwiches around the world, from the decadent meatball hoagie to the dainty cucumber tea sandwich. Loved the world over, this popular food has surprisingly never before been the subject of a book-length history until now.

Fortnum & Mason Food Book of the Year 2020 We never snacked like this and we never binged like this. We never had so many superfoods, or so many chips. We were never quite so confused about food, and what it actually is.

‘This book can’t give you a six-pack in seven days or the skin of a supermodel. But I can promise that if you make even a few of these adjustments, your eating life will alter for the better in ways that you can sustain.’

Salmonella, toxins, additives, food scares. Have you ever wondered how our food has become so untrustworthy? Via a fascinating mix of food politics, history & culinary detective work, Bee Wilson uncovers the many methods by which swindlers have tampered with our food throughout history.

Bad food has a history. Swindled tells it. Through a fascinating mixture of cultural and scientific history, food politics, and culinary detective work, Bee Wilson uncovers the many ways swindlers have cheapened, falsified, and even poisoned our food throughout history. In the hands of people and corporations who have prized profits above the health of consumers, food and drink have been tampered with in often horrifying ways--padded, diluted, contaminated, substituted, mislabeled, misnamed, or otherwise faked. Swindled gives a panoramic view of this history, from the leaded wine of the ancient Romans to today's food frauds--such as fake organics and the scandal of Chinese babies being fed bogus milk powder. Wilson pays special attention to nineteenth- and twentieth-century America and England and their roles in developing both industrial-scale food adulteration and the scientific ability to combat it. As Swindled reveals, modern science has both helped and hindered food fraudsters--increasing the sophistication of scams but also the means to detect them. The big breakthrough came in Victorian England when a scientist first put food under the microscope and found that much of what was sold as "genuine coffee" was anything but--and that you couldn't buy pure mustard in all of London. Arguing that industrialization, laissez-faire politics, and globalization have all hurt the quality of food, but also that food swindlers have always been helped by consumer ignorance, Swindled ultimately calls for both governments and individuals to be more vigilant. In fact, Wilson suggests, one of our best protections is simply to reeducate ourselves about the joys of food and cooking.