Penguin Books - Great Food 2011. Cover design: Coraline Bickford-Smith
BOOKS READ 40: LOVE IN A DISH AND OTHER PIECES BY M.F.K FISHER
M.F.K Fisher is considered to be the ultimate in food writing. I read nothing but praise and longings to be her and I was so excited to read her work and to join all these people in the cult of M.F.K Fisher.
I find her kind of boring.
I mean, a lot of her writing is from a time past, and I suspect many people like her because she is able to write well and poetically about things like life before a refrigerator (and oh, me, oh, my, dealing with fruit and sigh, cheese, before it gets spoiled) and eating course after course at a small, quaint restaurant in rural France. She writes about a simpler time, and it kind of makes you want a simpler life, or to make what seems like the mundane and simple of your life into a sort of everyday art.
And people who are inspired by her are able to do that and I am inspired and in awe of them.
M.F.K Fisher is just too far removed from me that all that she writes about is just so unrelatable.
There was one story though in this book that I did enjoy and that has made me have enough faith in M.F.K Fisher that I would read her writing again - just not any time soon. It’s the opening story of this book, Uncle Evans. She talks about how when she was a young girl, her Uncle Evans invited her for what would be her first longest train ride ever. They were dining in the meal car and he asked her what she wanted to eat. To which she mumbled that she didn’t care. And he said, You should never say that again, dear girl. It is stupid, which you are not. It implies that the intentions of the host are basically wasted on you. So make up your mind, before you open your mouth. Let him believe, even if it is a lie, that you infinitely prefer the exotic wild asparagus to the banal mushrooms, or vice versa. Let him feel that it matters to you…and even that he does! He went on to say All this, may someday teach you about the art of seduction, as well as the more important art of knowing yourself.
Boom.
Couldn’t have said it better myself Ms. Fisher.
It’s important to be decisive. And then after that, the harder part. Being decisive in what you want and holding to it.
And I think it’s something that is a constant process until the end of our days.
