Why did I love this book?
Dotted with stories of her life in France, M.F.K. Fisher’s intertwined food and life in such a natural way that it would make you wonder if they were not just one after all. As I read through this anthology of her works, I was drawn into her stories of Sunday picnics by swimming holes, of pre-war Paris, warming segments of clementine on radiators while watching soldiers soldier. I was taken by the way she placed modest words beside one another to create images, tastes, and smells so whole that I could have sworn the memories were my own.
When I began writing a book of my own stories, I naturally thought of M.F.K. Fisher. With her as my muse, I recalled memories of being fed as a child, my belly warm and full of savoury porridges dotted with rustic dumplings that my grandmother would spin out of leftovers, stories of bustling markets in full bloom, of losing loved ones, stories of losing, and finding myself, in Paris and the kitchen.
2 authors picked The Art of Eating as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
Ruth Reichl - 'Mary Frances [Fisher] has the extraordinary ability to make the ordinary seem rich and wonderful. Her dignity comes from her absolute insistence on appreciating life as it comes to her'. Julia Child - 'How wonderful to have here in my hands the essence of M.F.K. Fisher, whose wit and fulsome opinions on food and those who produce it, comment upon it, and consume it are as apt today as they were several decades ago, when she composed them. Why did she choose food and hunger she was asked, and she replied, 'When I write about hunger, I…
