About A Few of Our Favourite (Kitchen) Things
How is it that the most everyday of kitchen objects come to carry huge personal value far beyond monetary worth? Perhaps it is when we connect them with family memories or as symbols of identity. They become ways to keep the past alive, or to connect us with people or places we are now separated from.
In Bee Wilson’s latest book, The Heart-Shaped Tin: Love, Loss and Kitchen Objects, she charts how seemingly ordinary things take on deeply personal meanings in our lives. For this event Bee and award-winning food writer Melek Erdal will be exploring with Food Season co-director Angela Clutton the emotional and psychological relationship so many of us have with kitchen objects – from a grandmother’s old rolling pin, to a cracked pasta bowl or a particular piece of cutlery.
Melek and Bee will be sharing stories of the objects that carry the deep personal resonances for them, and the audience are encouraged to bring and share their own objects and stories too. This will be an interactive event hearing from the speakers and members of the audience about the things in our kitchens that emotionally connect us.
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More information
About the speakers
Angela Clutton is a cook, presenter and award-winning author of three cookbooks: The Vinegar Cupboard, Borough Market: The Knowledge and most recently Seasoning – How To Cook and Celebrate The Seasons. She has written on food and drink for publications including the Daily Telegraph, Independent and Country Life. Broadcast work includes the Channel 5 ‘Inside…’ series. Angela is Co-Director of the British Library’s ‘Food Season’.
Melek Erdal is an Alevi Kurdish writer, cook, broadcaster and multi-disciplinary storyteller exploring themes around community, identity and resilient joy. Istanbul-born, east-London-raised, Melek’s recipes, voice, and words have featured in the Guardian, on BBC Radio 4's The Kicthen Cabinet, and in her column in Vittles. She is Fortnum and Mason Cookery Writer of the Year in 2024
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, including Consider the Fork and First Bite. Her first cookbook, The Secret of Cooking, won a Guild of Food Writers Award. She lives in Cambridge.
About Food Season 2025
The British Library Food Season returns for its seventh year, bringing together some of the most influential names in food, drink, hospitality, literature and science, for a series of events that highlight the stories, the politics and the people behind how and why we eat. Discover more Food Season events.
Attending your event
This is an in-person only event in the British Library Knowledge Centre. Please arrive no later than 15 minutes before the start time of this event. If you have specific access requirements please email customer@bl.uk
Concessions
There are a range of concessions available. These include discounts for British Library Members, half-price tickets for students and under 26s, free entry for carers as well as a number of other concessions.
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