The Heart-Shaped Tin
Love, Loss and Kitchen Objects
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- R$ 79,90
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- R$ 79,90
Descrição da editora
‘Extraordinary’ TELEGRAPH ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
'Bee Wilson is one of my favourite writers and this may be her best book' CHRIS VAN TULLEKEN
This strikingly original account from award-winning food writer Bee Wilson charts how everyday objects take on deeply personal meanings in all our lives.
One ordinary day, the tin in which Bee Wilson baked her wedding cake fell to the ground at her feet. This should have been unremarkable, except that her marriage had just ended.
Unsettled by her own feelings about the heart-shaped tin, Wilson begins a search for others who have attached strong and even magical meanings to kitchen objects. She meets people who deal with grief or pain by projecting emotions onto certain objects, whether it is a beloved parent’s salt shaker, a cracked pasta bowl or an inherited china dinner service. Remembering her own mother, a dementia sufferer, she explores the ways that both of them have been haunted by deciding which kitchen utensils to hold on to and which to get rid of when you think you are losing your mind.
Looking to different continents, cultures and civilisations to investigate the full scope of this phenomenon, Wilson blends her own experiences with a series of touching personal stories that reflect the irrational and fundamentally human urge to keep mementos. Why would a man trapped in a concentration camp decide to make a spoon for himself? Why do some people hoard? What do gifts mean? How do we decide what is junk and what is treasure? We see firsthand how objects can contain hidden symbols, keep the past alive and even become powerful symbols of identity and resistance; from a child’s first plate to a refugee’s rescued vegetable corers.
Thoughtful, tender and beautifully written, The Heart-Shaped Tin is a moving examination of love, loss, broken cups and the legacy of things we all leave behind.
‘This is both a memoir of a divorce and a sweeping cultural commentary … A fascinating and heartwarming read’ The Times & Sunday Times Best Summer Reads 2025
‘This beautifully written book about the deep significance of certain objects in our kitchen – is nothing less than an intense, compassionate expression of the human condition … Both intimate and expansive, The Heart-Shaped Tin is a book I know I’ll give, urgently and importantly, to those I love’ Nigella Lawson
‘I loved this book … Very few food writers can do what Bee does. It made me think again – and with more tenderness – about the kitchen objects that I ordinarily take for granted. These are the human stories embedded in our material culture, and Bee brings them effortlessly to life’ Ruby Tandoh
'Heart-wrenching and heart-warming in equal measure. No one is so good at capturing the everyday magic of kitchens, cooking and life as Bee Wilson' Letitia Clark
‘Bee Wilson has changed the landscape of the kitchen by breathing life into ordinary objects. Through this remarkable book you will find yourself discovering meaning in plates, sadness in spoons, love in a measuring cup. I want to give this book to every cook I know’ Ruth Reichl
'A moving and fascinating exploration of the vital role played by household objects in our love of home and family' Sophie Hannah
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
After her 23-year marriage ended, food writer Wilson (The Secret of Cooking) was doing laundry when she knocked to the ground the heart-shaped tin she'd used to bake her wedding cake, sparking her to reflect on the hopeful notion of marriage it had once—but no longer—stood for. Exploring how "kitchen objects can have a life of their own," the author uses items ranging from a salt shaker to corkscrews to investigate impermanence, loss, and what it means to care for a loved one. In "The Kitchen Table," Wilson mourns her marriage and the family life she and her ex-husband once shared at the dinner table ("The very wood seemed to be full of him, as if his hands had left traces on the grain"). "My Grandfather's Teapot" finds Wilson ordering a secondhand teapot that she later discovers was designed by a long-dead grandfather to whom she's able to feel more connected. The strongest essays center Wilson's personal history (her divorce, her mother's death, her children aging); less successful are pieces that revolve around objects that were meaningful to others (a pair of "very old tongs shaped like a pair of clapping hands" prized be a pie maker) or expound more conceptually on the notion of objects having special resonance. Still, this contains plenty of poignant moments.
