Have you ever thought about why, of all spices, salt and pepper are the one on every kitchen table?

Salt might be easy to guess, after all, it’s crucial for human bodies to function . And even though we’ve only known that for a comparatively short time,

"It is always quietly thrilling to find yourself looking at a world you know well but have never seen from such an angle before."

-Bill Byrson

At Home takes you on a tour of the modern home, using each room as occasion to reminisce about the history of its tradition, thus enlightening you with how the amenities and comforts of everyday life you now take for g...

Bill Bryson is the megastar of curious, inquisitive, entertaining writing. Whatever the topic, he manages to make it come to life for the reader, as if he or she was the one doing all the exploring.

At Home is a historic sketch of “private life” – you know, what happens behind those precious four walls we all call home. Bill takes you on a tour of his house, telling a story in each room about how it grew into the pur...

1. Fighting harder for longer: food didn’t come easily until very recently.
2. Rodents and rings made sleep much less regenerative 100 years ago.
3. There are two very different reasons why there’s a salt and a pepper shaker on every kitchen table.

Are you in for a dif...

You know the neanderthals had a tough time filling their stomachs. Hunting, gathering, learning what’s edible and what’s not through trial and error. These were tough times, no doubt. I have to admit though, that in my mind, somewhere around the 1600s, making sure you ate 2-3 times a day “must ha...

Easy access to food is predicated on one thing: making it preservable . This process didn’t even start until the late 1700s. A confectioner from Paris, Nicolas Appert , was the first to try and can foods, sealing...

Bryan Donkin improved upon his concept, even launching the first commercial iron tin cannery, but wrought iron cans were heavy and almost impossible to open. Some even came with instructions to open them with hammer and chisel, ...

The first true relief at scale came with the invention of the can opener as we know it today : in 1925.

What none of this accounts for is that people rarely knew with certainty what they were eating, as food labeling has been required ...

Bedbugs, moths, mice, rats and other rodents were all too common companions while trying to get some shut-eye back then . When not all rustling beneath the sheets was of the good kind , you did well to keep a shoe c...

Speaking of reproductive activities, they were considered a mere practical act back then. Having kids was good, but having fun while conceiving them? Nah-uh. Women were told to avoid board games and reading, as those could arouse them, and since masturbation was also considered filthy and unhealt...

However, there was one condiment with which it was even easier to show how wealthy and mighty you were: pepper . Originally popularized by the ancient Romans, who couldn’t get enough of this stuff, prices reached crazy heights even back then. At one point, they offered an invadin...

In 1468, the Duke of Bourgogne used pepper as a decoration for his wedding: 380 pounds of it! Way to show who’s boss, huh? Of course we’ve gotten smarter about using pepper more resourcefully, but it remains, to this day, a little status symbol atop our kitchen tables.

The 16 year old who’s too lazy to warm her frozen food when mum isn’t home, the 43 year old hotel guest, who regularly complains to the staff how “hard” his mattress is, and anyone who never asked why salt and pepper always show up together.