The Heart-Shaped Tin

by Bee Wilson

Fourth Estate The Heart-Shaped Tin ABISBOOK Fourth Estate.

Genres: Nonfiction

Hardcover

About the author

Bee Wilson is the author of books about food, approaching the subject from a number of different angles.

As well as a cookbook (The Secret of Cooking), she has written books on food and history (Consider the Fork), food and psychology (First Bite), and the emotional life of kitchen objects (The Heart-Shaped Tin: Love, Loss and Kitchen Objects).


Wilson's book The Way We Eat Now was awarded the Fortnum & Mason Food Book of the year in 2020.

Wilson's cookbook The Secret of Cooking was listed as one of The New Yorker's Fifteen Essential Cookbooks as well as a New York Times, WBUR Here & Now, and National Post Best Cookbook of 2023 and one of the Guardian's Five Best Food Books of 2023

In 2025 she was awarded an M.B.E. for services to food writing and food education (the educstion part was for her work in co-founding and creating TastEd, a charity in the U.K. aimed at introducing children to the joys of vegetables and fruits using their senses.

Reviews

[Wendy Greenberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love books about food that dig down into human emotions and experience. This collection is a left field version where it is an emotional rummage through the physical cupboards of the kitchen and the cupboards of memory and experience. She spreads her pieces over her own life and anecdotes, stories of others doing similar, accompanying periods of life and change.

I found I could not read the book in one bite and dipped in and out, rather like Bee Wilson does, uncovering detail at leisure.

I found it engaging and incredibly thought provoking

[Liz · Rating 3 out of 5]

The main themes were around Wilson's recent divorce and the gradual decline and death of her mother from dementia, with many anecdotes about cooking and kitchenware around both events. A lot of highbrow philosophy was discussed too.
I wasn’t so taken with chapters on other people’s kitchen equipment, in part because these seemed to break the flow of the memoir stories. It was interesting to learn that a pressure cooker was first demonstrated in the 1670s by a Frenchman though.

A minor complaint: The chapter on Australian glory boxes mentioned hope chests but not bottom drawers, as us Brits used to have.

3.5 really

[Judith Palmer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an Audible commute read for me …. And I probably should have done this hard copy as there were several moments which really caused my eyes to tear up as it perfectly captured snippets from my own life over the last 10 years - losing my Grandma, Mum and Dad in the space of 6 years means there has been a lot of sentimental item selection and stashing in my own home ….. the Royal Albert tea set, the egg strainer bought for 10p from Burnley flea market, the Suzy Cooper coffee cups (I even tracked down a replacement periwinkle one as Mum was still keeping the broken handle inside the original one in the set!), the glass mixing bowl the perfect size for a sourdough loaf mix, a wooden rolling pin, the 1 and 2lb loaf tins and the Blue Mink hostess ware cake plates ….. all added to our kitchen cabinets alongside his Mum’s Pyrex mixing bowl …. This is a lovely and insightful read about how kitchen and food linked objects tell a story, keep it alive and are so very important and not just ‘stuff’.

[Daena · Rating 4 out of 5]

The reason anything means anything is because of us, huh.

This was a sweet quick read. I’d even say cozy and relaxing in the past busy weeks. I enjoyed all the anecdotes and stories attached to each kitchen item. It’s fun to hear about how something I wouldn’t even bat an eyelash to would be the world to someone else.

We all tend to humanize the small things and use them to keep our memories.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes a bit slow/repetitive but altogether an enjoyable read with plenty of food for thought (sorry about the pun)

[Vikki · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gorgeous memoir of sorts looking at our relationship with kitchen objects. This book made me cry several times, and I have had lots of lovely conversations about cutlery and crockery since I finished it.

4.5 stars