| Title | : | An Alphabet for Gourmets |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0865473919 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780865473911 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 213 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1949 |
An Alphabet for Gourmets Reviews
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An Alphabet for Gourmets was a anthology of essays on food first published in 1949 by M.F.K. Fisher starting with the letter A - A is for Dining Alone and ending with the letter Z - Z is for Zakuski. And the rest of the alphabet had wonderful essays about some aspect of food and the pleasures of dining whether it be alone or with others throughout the book. There are wonderful recipes throughout the book as well. One of my favorite essays was the first essay about the art of dining alone in nice restaurants as M.F.K. Fisher frequently enjoyed. This theme is prevalent in many of her an previous books as well. I think that I gravitated to those occasions as I too had learned that art, whether it be in a restaurant or at home, during the times that my husband was working out of state. And another favorite was E is for Exquisite an its gastronomical connotations for the author where she brings into focus some of the great historical and literary gourmets then bringing it back to her life in northern California regarding the controversey as to the proper times to eat a salad with these words:
"There they are not afraid to lead up to lead up to the triumph of a heady entree and its accompanying bottle by such sturdily subtle flavors as a fresh tomato can give, or garden lettuce touched with a garlic bud, or a morsel of anchovy. In Napa or Livermore or Sonoma a roadside boarding-house will serve such antipasto as would please any finicky gourmet strong enough to meet the wine he wanted.
There is an approximation of the classical tossed green salad may be well part of any laborer's daily fare, as a prelude to the meat and the wine that must mainly nourish him, and not as a routine sourish aftermath, tackled without appetite or interest simply because it has become traditional elsewhere to serve the salad after the roast."
Another delightful essay was P is for Peas,. and relates a few of the reasons why the best peas M.F.K. Fisher ever ate in her life were the very best she had eaten. She described how her peas reached an unbelievable perfection and would probably not happen again as there are three things that all gourmands agree on about peas, "these delicate messenger to our palates from the kind earth-mother": they must be very green, they must be freshly gathered, and they must be shelled at the very last second of the very last minute. These were the peas that the author planted in a steeped terraced garden among the vineyards between Montreux and Lausanne at her house at Le Paquis, on Lake Geneva. With her parents and friends, she prepared the fresh peas that were served with cornish hens, a salad of mountain lettuces, bread and wine followed by a Roblichon cheese.
". . . And later still we walked dreamily away, along the Upper Corniche to a cafe terrace, where we sat watching he fireworks far across the lake at Evian, and drinking cafe noir and a very fine 'fine'.
But what really mattered, what piped the high unforgettable tune of perfection, were the peas, which came from their hot pot onto our thick china plates in a cloud, a kind of miasma, of everything that anyone could ever want from them, even in a dream."
And I will finish with another favorite essay, "R is for Romantic. . . And for a few of the reasons that gastronomy is and always has been connected with its sister art of love." And no more need be said. -
My highest form of praise for a book is when I want to have my favourite quotes from them around me all the time; when I want to print them on posters and have them on my walls, or put them on hoodies and wear them like statements of a true gourmand. I'm not going to bore you with a review, I will simply say that if you're moved by food, the act of cooking, providing and sharing a meal with a loved one, you should read this book.
This was my first Mary Fisher book and it will certainly not be my last. Here are some of my favourite parts:In general, I think, human beings are happiest at table when they are very young, very much in love, or very lone.
[...] what is much better in life that be hospitable and to know by your guests' faces that you have proved a noble host indeed?
In either case my gastronomical suspicions, dormant somewhere between my heart and my stomach [...]
[...] two people who know enough, subconsciously or not, to woo with food as well as flattery.
[...] [he] taught me to realise the almost vascular connection between love and lobster pâté, between eating and romance.
[...] and always I have reached a peak of contentment, satisfaction, fulfilment, which is a special virtue of sharing food in a public place with one other human being [...]
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I started reading this once, and only made it to about D or E before becoming distracted by The Gastronomical Me, which is contained in the same volume. I'll give it another try, and see if I can get all the way to Z for Zakuski this time.
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More than a memoir with recipies, which genre I love to read, M.F.K. Fisher comments on her life with and without food. In alphabetical order Fisher offers opinions on topics such as the art of dining alone, the relationship of food and love, the uselessness of salt, and the proper place of hors d'oeuvres. The writing is especially interesting to me, a generation removed from Fisher's writing, as the book records Fisher's reponses to the food culture of her time and recalls my mother's kitchen and with its red-checkered Better Homes and Garden Cookbook. As I read some of Fisher's comments on jello, salt, or milk toast and soft eggs, I can see and smell my mother's kitchen. Fisher and my mother don't always agree on the goodness of such items but the fun of reading is in thinking about the difference.
Fisher writes personally, decidedly, with wit and detail. I feel as though we've had a great discussion about food after reading this book, and I'm also a little hungry. I think I'll go make an egg... -
M.F.K. Fisher is one of my favorite writers, albeit very unctuous. I read her in very small bits, partly because of that richness, but also because I know that there is only a finite amount of her writing in the world.
I love her writing, but I also love the glimpses we get into her wild, dauntless, and completely baffling life in the lost and long-ago mid twentieth century. Here, we see growing up in the Midwest--or California? Aunts from Britain, or Japan, or both? Daughter of a small-town newspaper editor, who liked to take his family galivanting around Europe? And of course, a quintessential lover of food who eats convenience store crackers alone at home for most meals. We also see glances of an even earlier time, now lost to Fisher, as when she off-handedly and poignantly mentions a restaurant she used to know in Amsterdam, "before the bombs fell."
I think it is that combination of beautiful, decadent writing, but also that alienness, that makes me love her writing, and here is no exception. -
As a person who reads 200+ children's picture books a year, I can firmly vow to you that this is an alphabet book like no other. Yes, it's organized alphabetically, with one essay for each letter of the alphabet, but, trust me on this, even if you read through the chapter titles, you will have no idea where Ms. Fisher is going to take you.
X is for Xanthippe, for example, uses Xanthippe, the wife of Socrates, and her (presumed) behavior at meals (she is believed to be the epitome of a harpy) to share with her readers what not to do when dining together with others.
And Z is for Zakuski, the last chapter, is about hors d'oeuvres, which a logical thinker might wish to find in the A chapter. But Fisher has her reasons. And they are good ones.
N is for Nautical? M is for Monastic? And how do these fit into a book about food? Perhaps these are unexpected, but that is part of the delight of this book.
Even P is for Peas is not a straightforward treatise on the green vegetable, and that, too, is Fisher's charm. -
According to some Goodreads reviews, this is the weakest of the books that MFK Fisher has written, but she showed some real ingenuity in the premise of An Alphabet for Gourmets. Her first chapter is delightful, "A is for dining Alone," perhaps my favorite chapter. She writes some of the funniest, off-the-wall things, ending this chapter with an ambrosia recipe, stating, "To be at its worst, ambrosia should be pink." Later, in "N is for Nautical" she launches into her ocean liner eating escapades, as she calls them. Her moments of pretentiousness are many, and yet, in H is for Happy, she reminisces on long walks taken as a child with her Aunt Gwen and the fried egg sandwiches they would eat, sharing the very simple recipe. I look forward to reading her other works.
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Clearly, as you can see below, I have been on a bit of an M.F.K. kick of late - this book follows the alphabet in her usual discussions of food, from "A is for dining Alone," through "O is for Ostentation," to "Z is for Zakuski." Some very good recipes included. It is one of five in her "Art of Eating" series, including Consider the Oyster, Serve It Forth, How To Cook A Wolf, and The Gastronomical Me (far and away my favorite). (5/98)
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And of course I loved this as I love every single thing written by Fisher. I love that she narrowed her focus by having A through Z chapters, but then totally expanded on the word she chose for that letter, which was always just a jumping-off place. She makes the act of eating alone seem luxurious and treasured, which means I have been doing it wrong my whole life. But now I am inspired.
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The level of detail given to whole culinary experiences totally outside of my own made this feel more like reading a series of scifi short stories than stories about eating. It was immersive, but not remotely in a way the author would have intended from when and where she was writing.
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A great summing up.
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3.5 stars.
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She is at her best with this one.
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3.5 rounded up to 4. A mostly enjoyable read with some less enjoyable moments throughout. A great book about food with a lovely foreword by Ella Risbridger.
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An absolute DELIGHT
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On "F;" So far B is best.
This woman could write! Wonderful food essays. -
An entertaining read. Though Fisher sticks to a familiar A-to-Z formula, the choices are not the obvious ones of 'A for Apple', rather she strays from cliché with essays on such such subjects as O for 'Ostentation', N for 'Nautical', Q for 'Quantity', and so on.
Some recipes are very much of their time (such quantities of meat, butter and cream are uncommon in modern cookery books, as are the various tinned vegetable or fruit concoctions) as are some of the opinions (that a woman's nagging is what is most likely to ruin any meal is the most obvious example, but some are all the more relevant now.
On 'Gluttony' Fisher writes, "Probably this country will never again see so many fat, rich men as were prevalent at the end of the last century ... literally stuffing themselves to death". Yet at the beginning of the century after she was writing, the oversized coffins she mentions are again in demand during the current epidemic of obesity in the western world. Plus ça change... -
I feel like MFK Fisher is a secret the universe has been keeping from me --- and now, for whatever reason, has finally decided to reveal, much to my delight. Sure, some of her references are a bit dated, some of her judgments about things a bit stale, but the humor, strong opinions, and enthusiasm keep everything moving. Here's what she has to say about a dry martini: "It is as warming as a hearthfire in December, as stimulating as a good review by my favorite critic of a book I have published into a seeming void, as exciting as a thorough buss I have yearned for from a man I didn't even suspect suspected me." At the risk of being terribly hokey, I'd break bread with her anytime.
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My first MFK Fisher book and will be the first of many! Her writing is not as easy as some, but was still down to earth and peppered with small town phrases. Despite her fame in the food writing industry, Fisher was not a food snob advocate and was willing to eat anything....even canned pork and beans! This particular book is a collection of essays on Fishers various experiences with food and people spanning many years of her life...a food memoir if you will. The book also contains recipes, both practical and impossible and ranging from things Fisher ate to hold great nostalgia for her as well as recipes from her various collections of cookbooks and menus.
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I've read this already, but just found it at the used store and am now rereading and very excited. Everything MFK Fisher writes is always awesome, particularly if it is of the type "food essay". This is. Every book of the Art of Eating series is worth a serious perusal of the food writing section of every used bookstore in your experience. I now own two out of four and continue salivating and desperate to need the other half.
The Art of Eating anthology is better than nothing, but, as it cuts out major chunks, no substitute. -
This was a truly fun book to read. The author had her tongue in her cheek most of the time and had a really dry sense of humor. Some chapters were more compelling than others, but such is the case with this type of book. I liked how some of the recipes were more narrative than the usual recipe format. She seemed to be a straight shooter to me, and, if wishes could be granted, I would have loved to have lunched with her.
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This one was not MFK's best -- I'd describe it as just OK. She seemed to be at loose ends here and randomly tied together some snippets of thinking about food and cookery, with a few recipes here and there -- including atrocious ones like Milk Toast, that everyone already knows how to make and nobody wants to eat. She must have turned over in her grave when she saw the photo they chose for the cover of this book!
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Fisher's wit transcends the cute A-Z format of the book. I found nothing predictable, no "A is for Apple". With chapters like, "O is for Ostentation" and my favorite "S is for Sad" I was charmed.
I would give Alphabet 4 1/2 for a maddening rant about how a nagging women will send any good man running and more importantly ruin the best meal. Sigh. -
Thank you, Goodreads, for reminding me I said I was reading this.
I don't have a lot of pithy/useful commentary, but I have loved everything I have ever read by MFK Fisher. Do you like food, and also reading? Read her. Love her.
