I really enjoyed this book, as a history nut and a lover of sociology. This book is both – a history of cooking methods and instruments, and how these cooking instruments have changed how we cook and what we now cook and eat. Something I never thought of until now – we eat what we do because of inventions that allow us to keep these foods (fridges, freezers, methods of preserving, and the tools to cook certain things).

I was at brunch with a friend and suddenly had this burning desire to know where the hell forks came from, why do they look like that, when did we start using them? My friend bought me this book and I was ecstatic. The answer is in this book, along with other histories and facts you've never thought of.

The book's chapters cover individual cooking methods:
1. Pots and Pans - examines the history of using pots for cooking and innovations made in cooking pots. This leads to the invention of boiling food, and the science behind conductive heat cooking (food on a pan)
2. Knife - from stone to metal, knives have been one of the oldest tools for hacking at meat. Knives have also shaped our social norms regarding knives and human anatomy.
3. Fire - Since the domestication of fire, it has been the primary way we cook food. It transformed food from hard and raw to cooked and more easily edible. The chapter examines how fire-cooked food impacts the lives of humans.
4. Measure - tracks the evolution of measuring devices, most common being the cup. It looks at how people have measured food and time using relative methods, like "the size of a walnut" or timing cooking by singing or praying, to our modern methods of precise measurements on cups and spoons, etc.
5. Grind - examines methods for how we have ground and beaten food, mortars and pestles being one of the oldest methods. It also looks at how a thing like a whisk evolved from a clutch of twigs to the balloon-shaped wire or plastic whisk we have now, and subsequently how the quest for other types of beaters (eggbeaters) have come about.
6. Eat - examines the oldest and most universal eating utensil, the spoon. The spoon exists in every culture on Earth, but the utensil divide is shown in the separation of fork and chopsticks. This is a very interesting chapter, in terms of the (East vs West) sociology.
7. Ice - the methods for food preservation have evolved from salt storing to fridges and freezers. This chapter is a more modern history of fridges, and how they have pervaded modern culture as the ultimate kitchen necessity and accessory.
8. Kitchen - the evolution of kitchens themselves as an architectural space. From one room cottages of medieval times, to specialized rooms in our houses, kitchens, and in particular kitchen design as a hobby or process, have become the room we most agonize over but also feel primal senses of home and happiness.

This book is not about the evolution of food, but HOW we cook it and eat it. I hadn't realized before that the only reason we can eat the foods we eat today is because of evolution in cooking methods that allows us to keep food longer, to prepare it in ways unthought of hundreds of years ago.
It is written very accessibly, with humor and an appreciation for cooking. It is largely Western-based (America and Britain) with generous inclusions of the Far East, but it does include other cultures where appropriate. Overall a very enjoyable read.