Customer Reviews

Kitchen Utensils: Names, Origins, and Definitions Through the Ages

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...but you probably guessed that from the title. The lists are organized by type (serving dishes, drinking vessels, cutlery) and each term has a definition, documented variant spellings with sources, and the earliest known citation. Some pictures, too. So you can find out such vital information, for example, that a "pottle" dates to 1300 and is a liquid measure equal to two quarts, and was variously spelled potel, potell, potelle, pottel, and pottell. Useful for those who do not have access to the Oxford English Dictionary.

The title looks so promising: 'Kitchen Utensils. Names, Origins, and Definitions through the Ages'. But it does not deliver. What you get is a booklet with a lot of white, very little text, and small, randomly placed illustrations that sometimes occur more than once. I get the impression of looking at the notes of the author BEFORE he transformed them into a printable text. The information is often random and incomplete. The author provides us with the 'earliest citation', but not the source of this citation. I could cite many questionable lemma's, but will name just one.
Chapter 'Lighting'(p.32): "Betty lamp. (earliest citation 1893)"
Apart from a definition that could also be used for prehistoric clay lamps, no other information is geven, not even 'probable sources of terms and cognates'. A simple google search learns that this lamp is much older (18th century according to wiki, but this type of lamp dates from much earlier times), that the term 'Betty' refers to German 'besser' or 'bete', and, moreover, that it was in use until the end of the 19th century. That means that around Brooks' 'earliest citation' date of 1893 the lamp was becoming obsolete already. (although it still lives on, mainly because of the choice of the AAFCS in 1926 to use it as its logo).
To be really worth anything, the book should provide sources, and not only 'earliest citation', but differentiate between 'Earliest citation ever' and 'Earliest citation in America'. Because an 'earliest citation' for words dating from 700 for an American utensil is ridiculous. And this brings me to another questionable point: there is no mention of kitchen utensils terms from Native Americans.
I will stop now. Every time I open this book I see some other inconsistency or error. Not good for my blood pressure.
My advice to prospective buyers: don't.

Little more than a dictionary, and a limited one at that: the definitions are very short; and the few, random, black and white photos and drawings are tiny and gratuitous. A short, technical essay introduces this cheap offering. I suppose the book is useful if you are a scholar and you forgot the exact spelling of a utensil (and you have exhausted all of your nearly limitless online research options), but anyone looking for an interesting or informative book will be disappointed.