First Bite

Fortnum & Mason Food Book of the Year 2016 We are not born knowing what to eat; we each have to figure it out for ourselves. From childhood onwards, we learn how big a portion is and how sweet is too sweet. The way we learn to eat holds the key to why food has gone so disastrously wrong for so many people. But how does this happen? And can we ever change our food habits for the better? An exploration of the extraordinary and surprising origins of our taste and eating habits, in First Bite award-winning food writer Bee Wilson explains how we can change our palates to lead healthier, happier lives.

‘When you open FIRST BITE and see Science, don't panic. It is a weirdly addictive, intelligent and enjoyable explanation of why we eat as we do: more unputdownable than any non fiction has a right to be. Everyone should read it. And it might change your life. ‘ Charlotte Mendelson ‘Bee Wilson is the ultimate food scholar. First Bite is a brilliant study of how we form our food preferences and how we may be able to change them. Her narrative kept me hungry for more until the very end.’ Yotam Ottolenghi ‘This is a fascinating, at times provocative, investigation into how and why we eat what we do, how food can be both medicine and poison, and a call-to-arms manifesto to make eating guiltlessly pleasurable for all.’ Nigella Lawson ‘If there were any justice in the world, this book should be at the top of this month's diet-book bestsellers … I agree with every word she writes' Daisy Goodwin, Sunday Times ‘If any book can effect long-term weight loss, it should be this one, because it feeds the mind rather than denying the body’ The Times ‘First Bite is a feast of a book … Wilson’s focus on how we learn to eat rather than on what we eat is a refreshing new template for improving our relationship with food.’ Financial Times ‘First Bite is a brilliant read; a month after finishing it, I still think of it every time I set the table.’ Observer Food Monthly

Bee is an award-winning food writer, reviewer and journalist, currently author of 'The Kitchen Thinker' food column for The Sunday Telegraph's Stella magazine (for which she has been named food journalist of the year three times by the Guild of Food Writers). She is the author of four previous books, most notably THE HIVE (John Murray), SWINDLED (John Murray) and CONSIDER THE FORK, published by Particular Books/Penguin Press and by Basic Books/Perseus in the US. Before she became a food writer, she was a Research Fellow in the History of ideas at St John’s College Cambridge. Many years ago, she was a Masterchef semi-finalist. She is married with three children and lives in Cambridge.