Your kitchen is a crime scene, a battlefield, and a laboratory of revolution. That innocent whisk hanging on your wall? It was perfected during the industrial upheaval that reshaped Europe. The humble fork once sparked riots and religious condemnation. The refrigerator emerged from a doctor's desperate attempt to save fever patients in the sweltering American South, while the corkscrew evolved from a tool designed to extract bullets from wounded soldiers. These aren't just objects-they're witnesses to assassination plots, imperial conquest, feminist uprisings, and Cold War espionage. The Poisoner's Spoon pulls back the curtain on twenty common kitchen items to reveal the astonishing true stories hidden in plain sight. From the Chinese wok that traveled the Silk Road alongside spies and smugglers, to the pressure cooker that revolutionized working-class life and later became a symbol of domestic terrorism, each chapter uncovers the unexpected human dramas-passionate inventors, political rebels, accidental geniuses, and outright villains-who shaped the tools we use every day. These are stories of power, paranoia, and innovation, told with the pace of a thriller and the detail of investigative history. Perfect for fans of Salt by Mark Kurlansky, The Poisoner's Handbook, and anyone who loves discovering the strange, forgotten tales lurking behind the ordinary, this book transforms your kitchen into a museum of human ambition, folly, and ingenuity. You'll never look at your utensil drawer the same way again.