Some people tell me I cook too much; that I think of food
too often. But I cook primarily for two reasons: One because I don’t eat pre-prepared and processed foods which are laden with salt, fat and who-knows-what-else, which means I rarely eat in restaurants and two, because I am hungry!
These reasons cause me to cook from scratch, and I always find the
time to do so, even if that means letting go of something else.
I also consider eating good food to be one of the highest
arts of mankind and womankind. Perhaps I have read too much Mary Francis Kennedy (MFK) Fisher!
This preeminent American food writer wrote some 27 books, including a translation of The Physiology of Taste by
Brillat-Savarin. Two volumes of her journals and correspondence came out
shortly before her death. Her first book, Serve it Forth, was published in
1937.
Her books are an amalgam of food literature, travel and memoir. Fisher
believed that eating well was just one of the "arts of life" and
explored this in her writing. W. H. Auden once remarked: "I do not know of
anyone in the United States who writes better prose.”
I happen to agree. Her writings are worth reading, even if
you don’t give a hoot about cooking. We all like to eat.
Fisher had an interesting life. Born in Michigan, the family
moved to California when she was young. After her marriage, she lived in France for a
while and in Holland. In her book, The
Gastronomical Me, she describes one meal she prepared while living in
France:
“There in Dijon, the cauliflowers were very small and
succulent, grown in that ancient soil. I separated the flowerlets and dropped
them in boiling water for just a few minutes. Then I drained them and put them
in a wide shallow casserole, and covered them with heavy cream, and a thick
sprinkling of freshly grated Gruyere, the nice rubbery kind that didn’t come
from Switzerland at all, but from the Jura. It was called rape in the market,
and was grated while you watched, in a soft cloudy pile, onto your piece of
paper.
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| Fisher home in Aix en Provence, France |
A few more quotes:
“Probably one of the most private things in the world is an
egg until it is broken.”
“Family dinners are more often than not an ordeal of nervous
indigestion, preceded by hidden resentment and ennui and accompanied by
psychosomatic jitters.”
“Wine and cheese are ageless companions, like aspirin and
aches, or June and moon, or good people and noble ventures . . .”
“It seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and
security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot
straightly think of one without the others. So it happens that when I write of
hunger, I am really writing about love and the hunger for it, and warmth and
the love of it and the hunger for it… and then the warmth and richness and fine
reality of hunger satisfied… and it is all one.”
― The Art of Eating
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| MFK Fisher home in St. Helena, Calif. |
Below is a listed of all her published books (from
Wikipedia). I have not read nearly all of her work, but enough to know that she
was a master with words and in the kitchen. The
Gastronomical Me is a good book to begin with; The Art of Eating is also very good. Do yourself a favor and check
them out:
Serve It Forth (1937)
Touch and Go (with Dillwyn Parrish under the pseudonym
Victoria Berne)
Consider the Oyster (1941)
How to Cook a Wolf (1942)
The Gastronomical Me (1943)
Here Let Us Feast, A Book of Banquets (1946)
Not Now but Now (1947)
An Alphabet for Gourmets (1949)
The Physiology of Taste [translator] (1949)
The Art of Eating (1954)
A Cordial Water: A Garland of Odd & Old
Receipts to Assuage the Ills of Man or Beast (1961) The Story of Wine in
California (1962)
Map of Another Town: A Memoir of Provence (1964)
Recipes: The Cooking of
Provincial France (Time-Life Books 1968) [reprinted in 1969 as The Cooking of
Provincial France]
With Bold Knife and Fork (1969)
Among Friends (1971)
A Considerable Town (1978)
Not a Station but a Place (1979)
As They Were (1982)
Spirits of the Valley (1985)
Fine Preserving: M.F.K. Fisher's Annotated
Edition of Catherine Plagemann's Cookbook (1986)
Dubious Honors (1988)
The Boss Dog: A Story of Provence (1990)
Long Ago in France: The Years in Dijon (1991)
To Begin Again: Stories and Memoirs 1908-1929
(1992)
Stay Me, Oh Comfort Me: Journals and Stories
1933-1941 (1993)
Last House: Reflections, Dreams
and Observations 1943-1991 (1995)
Aphorisms of Jean Anthelme
Brillat-Savarin from His Work, The Physiology of Taste (1998)
A Life in Letters (1998)
From the Journals of M.F.K. Fisher (1999)
Two Kitchens in Provence (1999)
Home Cooking: An Excerpt from a Letter to
Eleanor Friede, December, 1970 (2000)
You can watch a wonderful three minute You Tube video of MFK Fisher sharing her wisdom and the benefits of making bread at this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ByAih3jw5I
I'm not familiar with any of the books but I know its interesting to you as you are such a wonderful and gourmet cook. I didn't get these genes about loving to cook but I do try to eat right "most" of the time. However, there are days, like we experienced on Tuesday with our fast food, that make us really try to eat right!!!
ReplyDeleteI don't consider myself a gourmet cook at all! Just always on the lookout for new and interesting food and ways to prepare them. Being trapped into a situation where we had to eat fast food, thankfully doesn't come along very often. And a good thing that is. I think it's because our "systems" aren't use to it is why we both got sick. Next time, we'll just go hungry! I hate to carry a lunch bag with me when I'm out and about! Oh, and I imagine your first thought when you read the title of this post was that I must go around with MFK Fisher on my mind ALL the time, since it seems I'm ALWAYS hungry!
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