275 Quotes by Bee Wilson

We are the first generation to be hunted by what we eat. Since the birth of farming ten thousand years ago, most humans haven’t been hunters, but never before have we been so insistently pursued by our own food supply. The calories hunt them down even when we are not looking for them.

When we lament the decline of time spent on cooking, we need to be clear what it is that we are lamenting. Many of the female cooks who devoted so many hours to preparing food in the past did so because they did not think their own time was worth much.

The term curfew now means a time by which someone – usually a teenager – has to get home. The original curfew was a kitchen object: a large metal cover placed over the embers at night to contain the fire while people slept.

There’s a joke about a man who tested his blade using his tongue: sharp blades taste like metal; really sharp blades taste like blood.

No one is doomed by genes to eat badly. Pickiness is governed more by environment than biology.

When we say we lack time to cook – or even time to eat – we are not making a simple statement of fact. We are talking about cultural values and the way that our society dictates that our days should be carved up.

Most of our problems with eating come down to the fact that we have not yet adapted to the new realities of plenty, either biologically or psychologically.

For thousands of years, servants and slaves – or in lesser households, wives and daughters – were stuck with the same pestles and sieves, with few innovations. This technological stagnation reflects a harsh truth. There was very little interest in attempting to save labor when the labor in question was not your own.

The gap in quality between the diet of the poorest and that of the richest is wide and widening. The poorest families in America may not look hungry in the way that Victorian orphans looked hungry, but they eat fewer dark green vegetables, fewer whole grains, and fewer nuts.