| Title | : | How to Cook a Wolf |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0865473366 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780865473362 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 202 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1942 |
How to Cook a Wolf Reviews
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Part cookbook, part Hints from Heloise, How to Cook a Wolf is M.F.K. Fisher's chatty, scatterbrained wartime guide for citizens hampered by food shortages or just lack of discretionary income generally. There's no actual wolf-cooking, which disappointed me: the wolf is just a metaphor for hunger. Some of her tips are a little bizarre:
Hayboxes are very simple...bring whatever food you want to a sturdy boil, put it tightly covered on a layer of hay in the inside box, pack hay all around it, and cover the box securely. Then you count twice as long as your stew or porridge or vegetables would have taken to cook normally, open the haybox, and the food is done. It is primitive, and it is a good thing to know if fuel is a problem for you.
...in a souffle, add one cup of puffed cereal to the three separated eggs, and you will have food for four people.
Someone named le Vicomte de Mauduit informs that "meat puddings should be served between the months of September and April; during the months without an "R" in them meat pies should replace them."
Some tips have the whiff of wartime menace:The best way to have fish for supper, in most places, will be to go out along the river or in your dinghy at the tide's change, if you can get past sentries and avoid the mines, and catch some mudcats or a few bass on your own hook.
Some are positively Dickensian. From the chapter "How to Keep Alive":The first thing to do, if you have absolutely no money, is to borrow some. Fifty cents will be enough, and should last you from three days to a week...If you must pay for the stove, it will probably cost about ten cents for the current or gas. That cuts you down to forty cents...buy about fifteen cents worth of ground beef from a reputable butcher...about ten cents worth of ground whole-grain cereal...Spend the rest of your money on vegetables...slightly wilted or withered things a day old maybe. Otherwise buy the big coarse ugly ones...It does not matter if they be slightly battered: you will grind them into an odorous but unrecognizable sludge.
Assemble the vegs and meat. Cover with water, bring to a boil, simmer for an hour, stir in the cereal, cook another two hours or longer "if possible." Cool and keep in a cold place, like a cellar, if you have no icebox. You can dine on this for days and stay "in good health and equable spirits."
If fuel costs are your biggest worry, buy meat containing bones. Bones conduct heat and your meat will cook six minutes faster per pound. Also, put a couple empty tin cans in the center of your burning fire; they will retain a lot of heat that otherwise would go up the chimney.
Two of the scariest recipes are "Aunt Gwen's Cold Shape" - 1 calf head, quartered, 1/2 cup lemon juice or 1 cup white wine, herbs; and Mouth Wash: 2 ounces borax, 1 quart hot water, 1 teaspoon tincture of myrrh, 1 teaspoon spirits of camphor. Add pink coloring if your children demand it.
There are actually a few recipes I want to make: the bacon chowder, sausage (or sardine) pie, a (gulp) baked tuna casserole, and a tomato soup cake. Seriously. A cake with a can of tomato soup thrown in. I have to know what it tastes like. -
How to Cook a Wolf is interesting because I know that my mother was a bad cook. Thus, when I learned to cook, I also learned to be a bad cook. Fisher's book is full of tips and tricks for saving money by budgeting, having a simple grocery list, and cooking in quantities that conserve on heat expenses, as well. From this frugality comes a kind of happiness. We rediscovered this in the slow food movement. Currently, all the hip young people are trying to get away from the processed, the ready-to-eat, the chemically-laden snacks and additives that characterized an entire childhood, an entire education in cooking.
At least, this was the case for me. I grew up in the middle of the Midwest in a town about an hour from any large markets. We were relegated to wilted veggies, eating the bruises of fruits, and eating lots of our own farm-grown meats. Hamburger Helper was a staple in every household. As kids, we often talked about which was our favorite. And I learned to cook Kraft-boxed recipes. I had no concept of an onion. I knew nothing of salt, or sugar, or the desires of foods as their being cooked.
Fisher presents such logic in this book (even in her asides and revisions). For me, she reinvented the use of beer, rum, and port for flavor and health benefits that oils can't deliver. She uplifts fresh, farm-grown vegetables as the major expense. She reminds us to save the water from potatoes to make a stock. That soup does not come from a can, and cannot condense itself, let alone a meal lacking an appropriate sauce to tie it together.
As a young cook, writer, and budgeter, I was surprised how drawn into this book I was - both for the recipes and my need to re-learn cooking. It's not that this book was ahead of its time being written in 1940 with a definite consciousness about rationing and war. In fact, I was raised in the 1980s, an era that had forgotten war and struggle. Our food produced habits of quick disposal, easy come and easy go with money and meals. I appreciate this book for reminding me of how the times have once again changed, and I admire it for how helpful it is for my generation as well. -
I wish I could have been friends with MFK Fisher. This book is full of her strong opinions, down-to-earth suggestions, and fantastic dry wit. Good stuff.
The book was originally written as a practical how-to for people who had to cook during the shortages and food-rationing of World War II. This edition was updated after the war, in 1951. Now, you may think that sounds like the set-up for a particularly grim book, but you'd be wrong. She is generally undaunted by the limitations that war-time cooks faced. She stays cheerful and even makes jokes about what must have been a very bad situation. In her revisions, she admits that some of her suggestions aren't at all appetizing, but this just makes the book more interesting.
The book has chapters on all the normal cook-book-ish things (breads, soups, poultry, fish, desserts). It also covers less common topics like how to stay alive and relatively healthy when money and good food are extremely limited, how to feed your pets most economically, to how to prepare REALLY extravagent meals when food isn't so hard to come by.
I like to read cookbooks, but I think this book would also be good for people who aren't that interested in food. It is interesting as a historical document, and it is interesting because of Fisher's wonderful writing style. -
I found this at my favorite used book store and it has a permanent spot on my kitchen shelf up at the cabin. This is a reprint of the 1951 edition, which was created by the author adding marginal annotations to the 1942 original. That only makes it better to my mind. Many of these notes are along the lines of "What the heck was I thinking?" and I can almost imagine a wry grin inserted here or there. She's also added in tips what to do once the war rationing is over...I can't find the exact passage, but she bemoans the butter substitutes that emerged saying she'd rather have a little of something good than a lot of an inferior product...and if you need to make this dish during times of shortage, then by all means follow her initial advice. But if you have a plethora at hand in times of abundance, then the has her advice for that too.
I've always liked her cookery books for the exploration of food as an art, touching on the mixing of flavors, the importance and addition of colors, and textures to a meal. I cook like that- knowing my flavors and tastes- the aromas and how they blend....that is such a part of the meal.
Some of the recipes are dated, and not to our style of eating today, but still interesting to read. There's a killer gingerbread recipe that I want to try, too. It's good writing, good reading, and I imagine good food....whether there's a wolf is at your door or not.
Given the state of the economy, there may be a need to learn how to cook a wolf! -
Not my usual thing, reading about food or cooking - but Fisher is an amazing writer, I only wish she'd taken to novels. Her power of description and subtle irony are very entertaining and kept me going in spite of my disinterest in the subject matter. Fisher is smart as a whip - here are some of the chapter titles, to give you a taste of her wit:
How to be Sage Without Hemlock
How to Catch the Wolf
How to Distribute Your Virtue
How to Boil Water
How to Keep Alive
How to Rise Up Like New Bread
How to Be Cheerful Though Starving
How to Carve the Wolf
How to Be Content With a Vegetable Love
How to Have a Sleek Pelt
How to Comfort Sorrow
How Not to Be an Earthworm
That last is my favorite. Anyway, she rocks. The book is dated as all heck, and some of the ideas in it are sheer madness = all part f the charm! -
MFK writes perhaps the best prose I've ever read. It doesn't hurt that she writes almost exclusively about food, one of my -- and anyone else who has the faintest conception of true human dignity and joy -- favorite subjects.
Nor does it hurt that she used the term "rich-bitches" perfectly in print in 1963 to describe the menacing and mundane upperclass: "One of the
saving graces of the less-monied people of the world has always been, theoretically, that they were forced to eat more unadulterated, less dishonest food than the rich-bitches."
Her advice on eggs and calf heads is unmatched. Her advice on vegetable loves and how to lure the wolf are beyond that -- untouched by all others. -
Who would think a book written in 1942 at the height of World War II and updated in 1954 would have relevance today? Yet under the proficient pen of MFK Fisher, you do. The “wolf” is your hunger, how you deal with cooking healthfully and with enough sustenance to leave you and your family full and keep the wolf at bay.
Fisher was ahead of her time; she brined cuts of meat, talked about eating less red meat (for health reasons as opposed to rationing), and praised polenta and risotto. Adorably, she talks about “shrimps” a lot (which made me wonder, why is it singular?), and the only thing that raised my eyebrows was cooking pasta al dente for 20(!) minutes. (I like to think pasta was different nearly 80 years ago than it is today so she wasn’t eating a bowl full of mush.)
The edition I read was updated by Fisher, who makes comments throughout, sometimes questioning her thoughts at the writing or updating for the times. While reading, Fisher’s voice comes out and she truly is hilarious. “Oysters, it has been whispered, shed a new potency not only in the brain but in certain other less intellectual regions.”
And while the wolf deals with hunger, it is of course much more, as this was written during a time when things were unsettled and thoughts of our country being invaded were on everyones’ minds. Fisher was a steady, calm, and at times humorous voice, one that gave confidence to those in the kitchen, who continued to cook good food for their families and those on the homefront. -
A good book to get a real taste of what it was like to be rationed during the war, how to survive in scarcity and emergency, and how to do it with humor as well as just good common sense.
This recipe did give me pause:
Aunt Gwen's Cold Shape (!)
1 calf head, quartered
salt, pepper, bay, herbs as desired
1/2 cup lemon juice
or
1 cup dry wine
The recipe does call for removing the eyes, ears, snout, and brains. Thank heavens. -
I am new to Fisher's writing, and instantly a fan. It's lively, biting and intelligent. Several times throughout the book I'd lose myself inside a single sentence of her prose. I wasn't expecting so much beauty and wit inside a wartime ration cookbook.
"Probably one of the most private things in the world is an egg until it is broken".
"One way to horrify at least eight out of ten Anglo-Saxons is to suggest their eating anything but the actual red fibrous meat of a beast."
So much of this book is still relevant today, and could teach many of us the practice of true economy. "How to Keep Alive" is a favorite chapter of mine, and quite literally gives instruction on how to stay alive without any food or money. As a desserts writer I'm re-reading the chapter on sweets - "How to Comfort Sorrow" - and baking my way through the recipes (the chapter is quite thin, so it's not a grand undertaking). Dessert was less often enjoyed then because of the expense, but Fisher recognized its value - a comfort in trying times. -
"A biochemist once told me that every minute an egg is cooked makes it take three hours longer to digest. The thought of a stomach pumping and grinding and laboring for some nine hours over an average three-minute egg is a wearisome one, if true, and makes memories of picnics and their accompanying deviled eggs seem actively haunting."
This book contains some dubious advice and sadly requisite 50's racism and internalized misogyny, but if you found the above passage amusing in any way, you'll have a grand ol' time reading it. -
“When the wolf is at the door one should invite him in and have him for dinner.”
—MFK Fisher, How To Cook a Wolf
How to Cook a Wolf is a collection of essays focusing on frugality during difficult times. It was first published during World War II.
I'd love to hear what a young person would say about some of Fisher's suggestions. I imagine a young person would find them to be very extreme. -
MFK Fisher's book seems uncannily appropriate to my days of unemployed living in America. She was writing about the scarcity of war-time America, but we've become so accustomed to our country's overextended reach into military engagements abroad that war is not what comes to mind first as the cause for the wolf's snuffing at the door. Rather, we bat the word "recession" around freely, and though it lacks the humility of the word "poverty," it lacks also the pride of Fisher's war effort. We've been encouraged to go about as normal and maintain our spending habits, as though, if we ignore the wolf, he'll stop his huffing through the keyhole.
Fisher's book is full of humor and thoughtfulness and some great common sense that we could all adopt in our kitchen. I made a version of her potato bread last week and this morning made her family gingerbread and when I was roasting some vegetables the other day, I remembered to slip some apples into the oven as well. Tips like these don't loose potency over time. -
I just didn't like it. Her tone in this book is off-putting and I find her, in general, unconvincing on the subject of economy. Sometimes she sounds incredibly childish and self involved especially in her revisionary comments from the 50s, one of which was "That was a good sentence." ugh.
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Not exactly a cookbook, but a book about cooking and eating, and the philosophy thereof. MFK Fisher is some one I would have dearly loved to know.
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I never thought I would read a cookbook for recreational purposes, but... Wow--this book blew my mind to pieces. Then why only 3 stars? Well, because it is still--in its essence--a cookbook, though we read it for very different reasons nowadays (although I was tempted to try one recipe just so I could say I'd made "Eggs in Hell"--our grandparents certainly did). However, if you skim through the actual "cooking" sections as I did, it's no less than a 5-star portrait of life during WWII rationing.
Fisher is just a lovely writer--she digests and devours her words. You can tell she gets as much physical pleasure out of the word well spoken as she derives from the meat well seasoned. She is an Epicurean of language itself--and as a fellow word-addict, I appreciated this read as a journey back to a time when both food and thought were a little purer and slow-roasted.
Mostly I emerged from this book with a passionate gratitude for the life our grandparents lived so that we wouldn't have to. Even more powerful than what Fisher is saying is what she's NOT saying. Many of the recipes are for lesser game such as rabbits and even pigeons, and include methods for digesting the liver, heart, head, tongue, etc. These nobles of the "Greatest Generation" lived with bombshelters, blackouts, rationing of fuel, little or no electricity and comfort to which they had become accustomed, and hunger. DAILY HUNGER. Fisher's description of the mom sitting down on her porch to enjoy her last slice of bread with her starving child absolutely made my insides sob. Her overall message is one of strength, hope, perseverance and living a life that separates luxury from necessity, allows for pleasures of the senses, gives thanks for every moment, finds humor (or creates it in its absence), and above all--survives with dignity. In other words, when the wolf comes to your door--cook it up!
FAVORITE QUOTES: (there are a lot, but believe me, they are AMAZING)
When we exist without thought of thanksgiving we are not men, but beasts.
Our texture of belief has great holes in it. Our pattern lacks pieces... Now, when the hideous necessity of the war machine takes steel and cotton and humanity, our own private personal secret mechanism must be stronger, for selfish comfort as well as for the good of the ideals we believe we believe in.
One of the saving graces of the less-monied people of the world has always been, theoretically, that they were forced to eat more unadulterated, less dishonest food than the rich-bitches.
Now, of all times in our history, we should be using our minds as well as our hearts in order to survive... to live gracefully if we live at all.
All truth smacks of smugness, but never to the point of ridiculosity.
From what I have heard of (my grandmother) she felt it a sign of weakness to be anything but firmly disagreeable most of the time.
Never ruin a good story by sticking to the truth.
Eating is an art worthy to rank with the other methods by which man chooses to escape from reality.
Probably one of the most private things in the world is an egg until it is broken.
Like every other human, I feel my own system is best... until a better one occurs to me.
Butchers, usually, are very pleasant people, in spite of having at some time in their lives deliberately chosen to be butchers.
For all of us... life would be simpler and the wolf would howl less loudly if we could adjust our minds to admit, even if we never quite believed it, that a tender sizzling rare grilled tenderloin was a luxury instead of a necessity.
It was a nice piece of toast, with butter on it. You sat in the sun under the pantry window, and the little boy gave you a bite, and for both of you the smell of nasturtiums warming in the April air would be mixed forever with the savor between your teeth of melted butter and toasted bread, and the knowledge that although there might not be any more, you had shared that piece with full consciousness on both sides, instead of a shy awkward pretense of not being hungry.
Fumes linger... They hide in curtains, and fall out at you two nights later like overripe shreads of dead ghost.
I'll not care, really, even if your nose is a little shiny, so long as you are self-possessed and sure that wolf or no wolf, your mind is your own and your heart is another's.
Some men have frowned and scolded and some men have drunk deeper as Mars squeezed them.
Other wars have made men live like rats, or wolves, or lice, but until this one, except perhaps for the rehearsal in Spain, we have never lived like earthworms.
Emergency is another word that has changed its inner shape; when Marion Harland and Fanny Farmer used it they meant unexpected guests. You may, to, in an ironical way, but you hope to God they are the kind who will never come.
If it comes to that, no book on earth can help you, but only your inborn sense of caution and balance and protection: the same thing cats feel sometimes, or birds or elephants. Everything resolves itself into a feeling that you will survive if you are meant to survive, and every cell in your body believes that.
Trust your luck and your blackout cupboard and what you have decided, inside yourself, about the dignity of man. -
Beautiful
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"Vegetables cooked for salads should always be on the crisp side, like those trays of zucchini and slender green beans and cauliflowerets in every trattoria in Venice, in the days when the Italians could eat correctly. You used to choose the things you wanted: there were tiny potatoes in their skins, remember, and artichokes boiled in olive oil, as big as your thumb, and much tenderer...and then the waiter would throw them all into an ugly white bowl and splash a little oil and vinegar over them, and you would have a salad as fresh and tonic to your several senses as La Primavera. It can still be done, although never in the same typhoidic and enraptured air. You can still find little fresh vegetables, and still know how to cook them until they are not quite done, and chill them, and eat them in a bowl."
After reading that half paragraph early in the book, I fell in love with M.F.K. Fisher. She might be the very best writer I have ever read (you should know that I have not read very many of the "great" writers of history, so take my opinion with a grain of salt, and a dash of pepper!) and that feeling is based on reading a cookbook! From 1941!
The book was written in 1941, specifically for World War II home makers looking to cut expenses and to live a more frugal existence as a means to help the war effort. MFK attempts to create a cook book that is gastronomically fulfilling in the face of this rationing philosophy.
It is not your standard cookbook. There is a real tasty recipe for gruel in here. Ever wanted to know how to cook an entire sheep's head? M.F.K. has got you covered. Throwing out the juice from canned vegetables? M.F.K. has a few better ideas for that juice.
The only problem with this book is that in 1952, M.F.K. went back to it and added some more stuff. In the 1952 edition, these additions took the form of footnotes. In the most recent edition, the publisher made the choice to incorporate the footnotes into the text and differentiating them with [brackets so that everything could be incorporated together but changes from each edition would still be distinct. It was a bit disjointed on the page and somewhat frustrating to read].
This probably wasn't the best M.F.K. Fisher book to read having never read her before, so I don't know if I should recommend it or not. I was introduced to M.F.K. in another book called
Provence 1970, that might be a good place to start if you have any interest in her. Here's my
review. -
The food and travel writer M. F. K. Fisher is turning out to be a wonderful new discovery for me – largely due to the sterling efforts of the Backlisted team who recently featured How to Cook a Wolf, Fisher’s wartime guide to keep appetites sated when good ingredients are in short supply, on their fortnightly podcast. It’s a timely read, particularly given our recent lockdown when planning ahead and making the most of store-cupboard staples swiftly became the order of the day. How prescient then of Daunt Books to have scheduled their lovely reissue of Wolf for the beginning of June, when many of us were still in lockdown. It’s a situation that gives Fisher’s insights into eating with ‘grace and gusto’ a whole new level of resonance, especially as *normal life* still seems somewhat fragile and uncertain in these challenging times.
Initially published in 1942 and subsequently updated in the 1950s, How to Cook a Wolf is a terrifically witty discourse on how to eat as well (or as decently) as possible on limited resources. The ‘wolf’ of the book’s title is the one at the door – a metaphor for hunger, particularly when money and other supplies are very tight.
In her characteristically engaging style, Fisher encourages us to savour the pleasures of simple dishes: the delights of a carefully cooked omelette; the heartiness of a well-flavoured soup; and the comforting taste of a baked apple with cinnamon milk at the end of a good meal.
Amongst others, there are chapters on eggs (How Not to Boil an Egg), meat (How to Carve the Wolf) and fish (How to Greet the Spring), together with sections on more philosophical topics, e.g. How to Distribute Your Virtue – all culinary-related, of course. The book is peppered with various recipes; some straightforward and recognisable (e.g. Napolitana Sauce for Spaghetti), others more bizarre or idiosyncratic (e.g. War Cake, ‘an honest cake, and one loved by hungry children’ despite its absence of eggs). The infamous Tomato Soup Cake also warrants a mention here: ‘a pleasant cake, which keeps well and puzzles people who ask what kind it is’. I’m almost tempted to give it a whirl myself…
To read the rest of my review, please visit:
https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2020... -
Fisher is a delightful prose stylist, and her advice for surviving in the midst of a wartime crunch on supplies resonates in a contemporary ecologically-minded, waste-averse context. Plus, the recipes are a blast, and she's very witty. I love her bracketed asides, commenting in the 1950s on the original text of the 1942 edition. Fisher is not just telling readers how to skimp and save--also how to mix cocktails, fantasize about luxurious cooking no longer within their means, and to feed pets cheaply but healthily during wartime. The epigraphs Fisher chooses for each chapter are also very charming. One of my favorite lines (of hers) appears in the introduction: "there can be no more shameful carelessness than with the food we eat for life itself. When we exist without thought or thanksgiving we are not men, but beasts."
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some absolutely bonkers recipes here, that Fisher describes in such gorgeous prose, makes me actually want to try it. There's a buttermilk shrimp soup in here that haunts me, I need to make buttermilk shrimp soup.
She probably describes baked apples in like every chapter. The idea of a tray of baked apples with a little butter and sherry sounds so good. Comfy recipes, that maintain a dignity needed in the midst of World War II. -
originally written to help folks stretch their money and choices for food/cooking during wwii, but updated in 1951 (korean and cold war, usa just cannot go on without wars right?) fisher is both smart and downtoearth in her funny stories and recipes keeping the wolf from the door. her short answer to the wolf is it better watch out or she'll cook it too.
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looking for ingredients... any suggestions?
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I read the updated version from 1988 which was so interesting: Fisher liberally sprinkled in her own editorial/parenthetical comments regarding her original text. Lively writing and such an interesting peek into wartime food availability.
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Practical advice on the art of eating whether you're facing the economy of war or not
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This food memoir was not a book I found myself wanting to binge on. This edition incorporates the author's later notes and additions in brackets, making for an awkward read. However, I kept on going for three reasons:
1. I committed to reading a food memoir for the Book Riot Read Harder Challenge. I picked this one because it was listed as one of Time's 100 Best Nonfiction Books.
2. I was reminded of my grandmother, a woman who lived through The Depression and the sacrifices of the world wars which Fisher cites. My grandmother sought ways to economize both in the kitchen and in life in general. Reading this made me speculate on which of the strategies suggested by the author that my grandma might have used.
3. The author used the phrase "rich bitch" in Chapter 1. I'm dying to find out what other snarky comments lay ahead.
Fisher was full of very strong opinions and she wasn't afraid to share them. She has a unique voice and, even within the title, deftly wields metaphorical language.
In case it isn't clear, the wolf in the title is the proverbial wolf at the door. Fisher shares hints, tips, and recipes for the times when the wolf is breathing down your neck and as well as when he is nowhere in sight.
The book is dated, so I don't imagine many modern cooks turning down the corners to save one of the recipes. Still, Fisher offers a glimpse into life between the great wars and, in the bracketed sections, after. -
Have you ever seen the movie The Philadelphia Story? If Katherine Hepburn's character were to dictate a war-time cookbook it would be How to Cook a Wolf. I enjoyed the observations on cooking, and the recipes from another time (though "Aunt Gwen's Cold Shape" sounds quite unappetizing) but most of all I LOVED this book for the author's wit. Fisher is the epitome of a classy dame, who writes things like "one of the stupidest things in an earnest but stupid school of culinary thought is that each of the three daily meals should be 'balanced.' [This still goes on in big-magazine advertising, but there seems less and less insistence on it in real life: baby-doctors and even gynecologists admit that most human bodies choose their own satisfactions, dietetically and otherwise.]". Another favorite, perhaps just because she uses the word disagreeable and can't you just hear it in Hepburn's clipped accent: "It is all a question of weeding out what you yourself like best to do, so that you can live most agreeably in a world full of an increasing number of disagreeable surprises."
Get the revised edition, as Fisher's added "what was I thinking" parentheticals are worth their weight in gold.
I'll leave you with my two favorite descriptions - she describes Camembert as "an unnecessary peptic goad, but a very nice one now and then" ... And later refers to a man's beard as "a fine Old Testament beaver, full of genius." Seriously, y'all. This is a one of a kind book. -
“How to Cook a Wolf” is clever, interesting, and surprisingly relevant again.
The book is a mix of memoir, recipes, good sense, and culinary history. Fisher shares meaningful memories of her pets, friends, family, and childhood. They are thoughtful little stories linked by the theme of making do during wartime shortages and tips on how to be resourceful with food and energy. MFK Fisher has this amazing way of taking the reader on a short excursion through her anecdotes and if you follow them to the end she always rewards you - usually with a laugh or at the very least an endeared smile. Fisher’s anecdotes are some of the best I have read.
Cooking during wartime, whether consideration being given to rations, portions, or even energy saving, is the main theme of the book. The war in question at the time of her writing was World War Two. The book also provides interesting insights into what it was like to be a homemaker in America during this time. Fisher guides the reader on how to stretch your ingredients, how to repackage groceries so they stay fresh longer, long term food preservation, how to make space in your oven to roast more at a time for energy saving, food pairings, and how to not waste. She shares thoughtful ideas on how to get more out of less whether it is making soup or what she calls, “War Cake”. She includes daydreams about delicious things to cook and eat during times of abundance as well. Many of the recipes included are simple in ingredients and directions. I have saved pages for soups, breads, omelettes, and baked apples. There is even a section on how to make soap and mouthwash during times of shortages.
I think the values addressed in this book are coming back around as many people have become more inclined to use less, whether for financial reasons, environmental concerns, or because they simply want to live less extravagantly. For myself, I have become interested in having less and living in a more basic fashion, so many of these recipes and ideas resonated with a lifestyle I am trying to procure in my own home. For those who are reading Japanese or Nordic books on living simply, I would say to give MFK Fisher and this book a try. She inspires minimalism and slow living in your kitchen from a place of historical relevance.
She is such a clever writer, it is hard to read her works and not have a big smile on your face. In this book, I particularly enjoyed the chapter names; “How to Boil Water”, “How to Greet Spring”, “How Not to Boil an Egg”, “How to Carve the Wolf”, “How to Make a Pigeon Cry”, “How to be Cheerful Through Starving”, and so forth. Each section begins with a short quotation of relevance, they are either clever or funny and many times both.
One of the many pleasant things about this book, at least the edition I have, is that Fisher herself went back over the book with revisions in the form of parentheses notes. These notes were so charming but more importantly they highlighted her sense of humour and personality. Many of them just said something simple such as; “Oh so true!”, “I agree, but I have since learned…”, and some included how to update the dish with more fat or meat to suit periods of abundance to really enjoy an extravagant meal. I have read two of her books now and have yet to find anything she has said to be disagreeable.
It took me some time to compile my thoughts to write this review, I adore this writing so much I didn’t know what I could possibly say. Fisher’s words and voice make me giddy, they make me want to start clapping in my living room and they make me want to grab anyone who’ll listen to read out one of her anecdotes. I was so inspired by her recipes that I have a sticky note on nearly every one of them and inspired by the chapter on eggs, I ended up spending my whole morning in the kitchen making quiche. I know I will use these recipes, as I did with “Consider the Oyster”, and I look very forward to skimming through the book itself every now and then. Her words offered order and simplicity during a time of chaos, words that transcended time and still bring peace, humour, and charm to those who read it.
Quotes:
“It is all a question of weeding out what you yourself like best to do, so that you can live most agreeably in a world full of an increasing number of disagreeable surprises.” (How to Catch a Wolf, 8)
“These petty tricks seem somewhat more so when gas flows through the pipes and firewood is available and electricity actually turns on with a button. But in each one of them there is a basic thoughtfulness, a searching for the kernel in the nut, the bite in honest bread, the slow savour in a baked wished-for apple. It is this thoughtfulness that we must hold to, in peace or war, if we may continue to eat to live.” (How to Distribute Your Virtue, 16)
“You can still live with grace and wisdom, thanks partly to the many people who write about how to do it and perhaps talk overmuch about riboflavin and economy, and partly to your innate sense of what you must do with the resources you have, to keep the wolf from snuffing too hungrily through the keyhole.” (How to Distribute Your Virtue, 24-25)
“(I am sure that I could live happily forever without tasting it again. There are many things like that: you recall with astonishment and a kind of admiration some of things eaten with censure delight at eight or eighteen, that would be a gastronomical auto de fé for you at twenty-eight or fifty. But that does not mean that you were wrong so long ago. War Cake says nothing to me now, but I know that it is an honest cake, and one loved by hungry children.)” (How to Comfort Sorrow, 9)
“Yes, it is crazy, to sit savouring such impossibilities, while headlines yell at you and the wolf wuffs through the keyhole. Yet now and then it cannot harm you, thus to enjoy a short respite from reality. And if by chance you can indeed find some anchovies, or a thick slice of rare beef and some brandy, or a bowl of pink curled shrimps, you are doubly blessed, to possess in this troubled life both the capacity and the wherewithal t forget it for a time.” (How to Practice True Economy, 8) -
I'd loved to have dined with M.F.K. Fisher; I can't (nor would want to) argue with her point that "since we must eat to live, we might as well do it with both grace and gusto." I'd regard her as a reader's food writer considering her writing is peppered with references to Cervantes, Omar Khayyam, etc. Completely charmed.
Favorite passage:
(On dessert) "Probably one of the best ends to a supper is nothing at all. If the food has been simple, plentiful, and well prepared; if there has been time to eat it quietly, with a friend or two; if the wine or beer or water has been good: then, more often than not, most people will choose to leave it so, with perhaps a little cup of coffee for their souls' sake."
