When Bee Wilson’s husband abruptly called time on their 23-year marriage, she was left with a house full of memories embedded in the everyday objects around her. Two months after his departure, the heart-shaped tin of the title – in which she’d baked their wedding cake – clattered to the floor for no apparent reason. Symbolic or what?
That leap inspired another, sending Wilson on a quest to explore our relationship to objects, specifically kitchenalia. After years of use, all possessions hold symbolic memories and actual DNA, and kitchen tools are handled more than most household items, from wooden spoons and cooking pans to salt shakers and china. And, she explains, kitchenware is a form of currency between family members, whether given by a child to a parent or the other way round:
What is really being exchanged is an idealised memory of the family dinner table. When a child leaves home, giving them something for the kitchen can be a way to connect them with the meals they have left behind and a rite of passage acknowledging that they are in charge of their own cooking now.
Nigella Lawson has praised Wilson’s ability to marry intellectual rigour with emotional openness, and that skill serves her well here. Her research is thorough. Not only has she read the studies and spoken to the social scientists conducting them, but stories have been sourced from around the world, shared here to break up and underscore the emotional impact of Wilson’s own history – and its universality.
These stories are delivered tapas-style, in short, poignant chapters getting to the heart of love and loss.
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