Winner of the André Simon Food Book Award
Shortlisted for the Fortnum & Mason Food Book Award
‘Extraordinary’ TELEGRAPH ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
'Delightful' GUARDIAN
'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.
‘With candour and intelligence, Wilson highlights how the props of domestic life become markers of the progress of our lives, but more movingly she probes that it’s possible to recover from heartache with gusto’ The Times & Sunday Times Books of the Year 2025
‘Fascinating and also tender’ Diana Henry
‘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
‘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
About the Author :
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 eight books on food-related subjects. Her first cookbook, The Secret of Cooking, won a Guild of Food Writers Award. She lives in Cambridge.
Review :
‘Bee Wilson’s study of kitchen objects passed down through generations, The Heart-Shaped Tin, offers an intimate new way of telling a life … This is a wonderful and original book, which has made me look at ‘stuff’ in a different way. I didn’t think I would love it as much as I did’ Telegraph 5-star review
‘Wilson has managed to strike the perfect (and rare) balance between historical and sociological survey — investigating other people’s fondness for their utensils — and memoir, weaving in rich personal anecdotes that show why her own kitchen is full of ghosts … thoroughly enjoyable book’ The Times
‘Warmly thoughtful, engaging and often erudite riffs on the strange potency of everyday things … Like those great food writers Margaret Visser and M F K Fisher, Wilson knows that everyday objects are the living echo of the great human rituals of labour, consolation, civilisation and, sometimes, subversion’ Literary Review
‘Bee Wilson is one of my favourite writers and this may be her best book. It is about love, and loss, life and death … 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
'Bee Wilson’s beautiful, melancholy book gave me permission to get out and enjoy the breadboard I took from my beloved late aunt’s 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
‘In this delightful book, part memoir, part anthropological investigation, food writer Wilson explores the way that kitchen objects have the power to move, soothe and even reproach us’ Kathryn Hughes, Guardian
