Bugün öğrendim ki: 18. ve 19. yüzyılda yemek takımları bir tuzluk, biberlik ve üçüncü bir çalkalayıcı ile geldi. Üçüncü çalkalayıcının ne içerdiğini kimse kesin olarak belirlemedi.

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Bill Bryson's new book _At Home_ has the subtitle "A Short History of Private Life," but it could be more accurately called "Really Interesting Stuff Nobody Knows." Stuff like a Stone Age village discovered in Scotland – older than the Great Pyramids – that had built-in dressers, storage shelves, plumbing, and even breezeways between houses. Or the tale of how salt and pepper became the condiments found on nearly every table. ("Why not pepper and cardamom, say, or salt and cinnamon?" Bryson muses.) The book touches on everything from dendrochronology to architectural history, with sprawling lemmas that appear to have nothing to do with homes or private life, until they segue tidily into the point at hand. In short, _At Home_ will give you interesting things to talk about at parties for the next hundred years, or at least until Bryson pens another one. Here are a few of its revelations: