Bee Wilson author photo
Image via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Bee Wilson

Born: March 07, 1974 – Oxford, England, United Kingdom

Bee Wilson is a British food writer and historian whose books explore cooking, eating habits, and kitchen culture. Her notable works include Consider the Fork, First Bite, The Way We Eat Now, and The Secret of Cooking. An award-winning journalist, she won Fortnum & Mason Food Book of the Year for First Bite and The Way We Eat Now.

Biography & Author's Journey

Bee Wilson emerged from a notably literary and academic milieu into one of the English-speaking world’s most distinctive food-writing careers. Trained first as a historian, she completed a Cambridge doctorate on early French utopian socialism and then held a research fellowship in the history of ideas at St John’s College, Cambridge. That scholarly formation has remained central to her work: even when she writes about a spoon, a loaf of bread, or a weeknight supper, she tends to use food as an entry point into larger questions of technology, memory, habit, and everyday life. ((https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/03/18/a-fork-of-ones-own))

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Quotes

quote
This is the power of objects; they keep those we miss in the room with us
-The Heart-Shaped Tin
quote
Telling people they are wrong to enjoy the foods they do enjoy is neither kind nor effective
-How to Crave Beans and A Recipe for Restorative White Bean Stew
quote
It has a deep umami quality that comforts me to my core
-Magic pasta with mushrooms. For One. From THE SECRET OF COOKING
quote
The secret of cooking is…the person who cooks
-What is the secret of cooking?
quote
As so often with cooking, what seems new on the page is not new in the kitchen
-Grated tomato and butter pasta sauce
quote
Reader, it only took eight minutes. Honestly!
-Ten-minute Chana Masala
quote
This is one reason, though not the only one why there is no such thing as a perfect recipe
-Why recipes talk in code
quote
My tastes and ideas about cooking change all the time
-Her and Me
quote
How can words compete with pictures?
-Orphan Recipes

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Community Voices

"Bee Wilson describes herself as a food writer; that's half the story"

The New Yorker

"Food writer Bee Wilson is like a kind older sister"

NPR

"Bee Wilson is a congenial kitchen oracle"

The New York Times Book Review

"Bee Wilson's supple, sometimes playful style cleverly disguises her erudition from archaeology and anthropology to food science"

The New York Times

"Bee Wilson is erudite and whip-smart, yet grounded in the perspective of the eternal harried cook"

Publishers Weekly

"Bee Wilson is the ultimate food scholar"

Yotam Ottolenghi

"Bee Wilson explores how food shapes our sense of self"

Bookforum

"Bee Wilson approaches it with loving curiosity and thoroughness"

The Spectator

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