Scan barcode
jabarkas's review against another edition
Just a quick reminder that I never give star ratings on Goodreads, and if I finish a book I automatically give it 5-stars on Amazon.
Whoo boy. Where. To. Start. Here, lets go with this:
M.F.K. Fisher is my favorite writer. This is not to say that everything MFK ever wrote is better than any other thing I've ever read. It is however to say, that at the moments when she reaches her artistic apogee, I feel more spiritually in touch with her writing than anything else I've ever read in my life.
This book is an omnibus of many, though not necessarily all, of Fisher's work. It includes what are probably her two most famous pieces, Consider the Oyster, and How to Cook a Wolf. Both of these are excellent, and in How to Cook a Wolf especially I find Fisher to be not only a moving writer, but a kindred spirit as a chef. The way that she writes about cooking, as an intimate act in which both cook and food are equal, dialectic participants, appeals to me far more than contemporary hand-holding recipes.
The next entry though, The Gastronomical Me, is where Fisher's writing truly approaches it's hallucinatory, literary zenith. A set of phrases that Fisher is fond of coining is that old saw about eating to live versus living to eat. In this semi-tragic travelog, what she manages to evoke is the indivisibility of the two, that to live is to eat, that to eat is to live. From creekside pies in California in the days before we butchered our milk as throroughly as we do the cows it comes from, to meek yet enchanting salads and whisky bumpers on cruise ships, through Burgundian snails, Swiss lake perch, to tortillas and beans on Guadalajaran verandas evoked so sympathetically you can feel the breeze. This book, though short, is one I could reread every month for the rest of my life and never grow tired, both a balm and a torment during America's particularly disastrous present.
There are other titles in here, less memorable though by no means bad, but I won't bore you with describing them. The summation of all this is that I can't guarantee this is the best food writing you will ever consume, but I believe that if it touches you in the way it does me, it will make parts of your brain sing in ways you didn't even know was possible.
Whoo boy. Where. To. Start. Here, lets go with this:
M.F.K. Fisher is my favorite writer. This is not to say that everything MFK ever wrote is better than any other thing I've ever read. It is however to say, that at the moments when she reaches her artistic apogee, I feel more spiritually in touch with her writing than anything else I've ever read in my life.
This book is an omnibus of many, though not necessarily all, of Fisher's work. It includes what are probably her two most famous pieces, Consider the Oyster, and How to Cook a Wolf. Both of these are excellent, and in How to Cook a Wolf especially I find Fisher to be not only a moving writer, but a kindred spirit as a chef. The way that she writes about cooking, as an intimate act in which both cook and food are equal, dialectic participants, appeals to me far more than contemporary hand-holding recipes.
The next entry though, The Gastronomical Me, is where Fisher's writing truly approaches it's hallucinatory, literary zenith. A set of phrases that Fisher is fond of coining is that old saw about eating to live versus living to eat. In this semi-tragic travelog, what she manages to evoke is the indivisibility of the two, that to live is to eat, that to eat is to live. From creekside pies in California in the days before we butchered our milk as throroughly as we do the cows it comes from, to meek yet enchanting salads and whisky bumpers on cruise ships, through Burgundian snails, Swiss lake perch, to tortillas and beans on Guadalajaran verandas evoked so sympathetically you can feel the breeze. This book, though short, is one I could reread every month for the rest of my life and never grow tired, both a balm and a torment during America's particularly disastrous present.
There are other titles in here, less memorable though by no means bad, but I won't bore you with describing them. The summation of all this is that I can't guarantee this is the best food writing you will ever consume, but I believe that if it touches you in the way it does me, it will make parts of your brain sing in ways you didn't even know was possible.
dlrcope's review against another edition
3.0
This book is physically too big to enjoy. Buy the books separately instead.
charsiew21's review against another edition
3.0
Strangely enough, this book didn't bowl me over as much as I'd hoped it would. But as with Steingarten, maybe Fisher is better appreciated as a pioneer of food writing, which she unquestionably was.
mehitabels's review against another edition
"It was there, I now understand, that I started to grow up, to study, to make love, to eat and drink, to be me and not what I was expected to be."
randomly's review against another edition
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
3.75
The OG food writer who was a major influence on James Beard and Julia Child. Her prose is as lush as her beloved French cuisine, and her insights into the psychology of eating are still striking.
Read it if you love to eat but maybe pace yourself through these 700+ pages.
Read it if you love to eat but maybe pace yourself through these 700+ pages.
sydbleh's review
Very good just a little too thick for my life at the moment. I’d love to pick it up again later
wafer's review against another edition
5.0
A collection of food related essays featuring some of the most beautiful descriptions and variety I've seen. Outside of the food writing world, Fisher seems more underrated than she deserves to be.
jwaddy17's review against another edition
5.0
I absolutely love this book. It’s taken me much too long to finish, but truly I have savoured it and look forward to picking it up again to read. It’s about food, about love, about the love of food and love of life. Her writing is witty, biting and sensuous.
I feel like I’m over-doing the praise too, but I’m not sure that’s possible.
I feel like I’m over-doing the praise too, but I’m not sure that’s possible.