The Heart-Shaped Tin: Love, Loss and Kitchen Objects

(Hardback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

**A 2025 book to look out for by the Guardian and Sunday Times**

'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 parents 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 childs first plate to a refugees 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.

Reviews

EARLY PRAISE for THE HEART SHAPED TIN:

Bee Wilson is one of my favourite writers and this may be her best book. It is about love, and loss, life and death. About what to keep and what to discard. It covers superstition, magic and more than anything it is a manual for recovery. Toast racks, pressure cookers, baby food scissors these are some of the tools that Wilson uses to reckon with, and answer, the most profound questions about the human condition. Full of joy and hope, this book will be an antidote to sadness in any reader Chris van Tulleken, author of Ultra-Processed People

'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, author of Bitter Honey

'Bee Wilsons beautiful, melancholy book gave me permission to get out and enjoy the breadboard I took from my beloved late aunts kitchen. Her generous understanding of why stuff matters to us is a humane rebuke to the declutterers, and she shows just how a melon baller, a toast-rack and a charity-shop platter can indeed bring joy' Emma Smith, author of Portable Magic

I loved this book. Bee is always an exceptional food writer, and here she's really come into her own, interweaving personal insight and emotion with deep research. The result is a book that is as rich with historical detail as it is delightful to read. 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, author of Eat Up

'A moving and fascinating exploration of the vital role played by household objects in our love of home and family' Sophie Hannah, author of Couple at the Table

Author Bio

Bee Wilson is a home cook, journalist and writer. Yotam Ottolenghi has called her 'the ultimate food scholar'. She writes for a wide range of major publications and has previously published six books on food-related subjects. Her first cookbook, The Secret of Cooking, won a Guild of Food Writers Award. She lives in Cambridge.