Dear Colleague,
I recently starting reading How to Cook a Wolf by MFK
Fisher and have decided that over the next
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Three little pigs -
the wolf lands in the cooking pot -
Project Gutenberg eText
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For those not familiar with Fisher, she was born in 1908 in
Albion, Michigan as Mary Frances Kennedy. Her family would move to California
around 1911, her father deciding he wanted to own an orchard farm. The family
would move up and down the California coast for several years until her father
put himself back into the newspaper business. There Mary Frances begin a short
writing career. She tried college off and on and finally married Alfred Fisher
in 1929. From there her life was a whirl wind of marriages (three in all),
movement (France, CA, NYC, Holland, etc.), children (two daughters) and writing.
She would write off and on for years producing a collage of books and essays.
She passed away in 1992 in Glen Ellen, CA.
How to Cook a Wolf
was written in 1942 (and revised in 1954) when war time shortages were the
norm. The overall concept: How to cook with what you have and how to make it
good and simple. Her writing style is bold, arrogant and sassy. [Note:
I am reading the revised version that was published in 1988 by North Point
Press. The 1942 version was published by World Publishing.]
She sets out in the first chapter (How to be Sage Without Hemlock) to disassemble the theory of a
balanced diet. What one person may need (three meals a day) may not work for
another. She goes on to destroy the theory first by sitting into place that
this is indeed an idea created by the food industry, to whip women into a tizzy
that they need to spend their days worrying over the “Three Meals a Day”. She
argues this “idea” is hard on the family to maintain not only on the “wills”
but on the pocket book. (p. 6)
Her way of thinking: “We should be using our minds as well as
our hearts in order to survive….to live gracefully if we live at all.” (p. 6-7)
Her simple plan: Balance
the day, not each meal in the day. (p. 7) Of course she says change is never
easy and those that are used to their pudding every day may not go willingly
into this concept. But if the food is good and tasty, then they will change
over time.
Her beliefs: balance, keeping it simple, keeping it fun, eat
how you feel, eat what is fresh, in season, available and make something good
from it. It doesn't take much.
Less is key, extravagance is for the weak. And these words
were written seventy years ago, how true to today with our over indulgence of
food!
She believes if you eat the way you want to, which is
simple, that you will awaken new pleasures and remember old ones (p. 9)
The second chapter titled How to Catch the Wolf (aren't these wonderful titles!) talks about
how war time easily applies to today. You don’t need fancy or processed to make a good meal. A favorite line: “A three minute
egg still takes about as long today as it did in 1722.” She is referring to all
the new pots and pans that have come out to make your cooking “better.” (p. 13)
She tells you, it is your responsibility to weed through all
the things presented to you, to truly find what you truly need.
In her chapter How to
Distribute your Virtue, she gives practical ideas for making things go
longer, not using as much energy – putting crackers in eggs, using a pressure
cooker, even a haybox! Ways to store foods in the fridge (never put meats in
plastic, wash fruits and vegetables, reusing your cooking fat). Cook for two
meals versus one to save energy.
Thoughtfulness – doing these simple things, never wasting is
something we must do in peace and war time “if we may continue to eat to live.”
(p. 20)
Her writing at times can almost seem condescending, but you
cannot help but laugh at her ability to make you feel smart and yet stupid all
at the same time. Her arrogance and candor are charming.
I love how she takes food and makes it sound so simple and
so delicious. She doesn't describe things with a lot of adjectives. She states
it plainly for what it is. A piece of toast spread with butter and a simple jam
and served with a cup of coffee. That sounds like the most amazing meal you
would ever eat, yet there is nothing to it. How wonderful, to be that simple.
If you were to never tell me where she was from or the many
places she lived, I would have put her on a farm in North Carolina or
Tennessee, next door to my mother in their one room house. Her ideas of cooking
are ways I remember my mother doing. Putting a
sweet potato in the oven while she cooked a roast. Later she would either make
that potato a special dessert for us to share with a glass of milk or breakfast
in the morning with brown sugar and cream. It was those little things that made eating special.
And I think Fisher was a first for juicing – keeping an old
gin bottle in the icebox to fill your unused vegetable juices into for use
later on or better yet to drink and get your vitamins. (p. 23) And never throw
away the leaves, boil them in water and add to the juice!
And her recipe for the perfect salad:
“I am tired of ‘tossed green salads’ no matter what their
subtleties of flavor. I want a salad of a dozen tiny vegetables: rosy potatoes
in their tender skins, asparagus tips, pod-peas, beans two inches long and
slender as thick hairs…I want them cooked, each along, to fresh perfection. I
want them dressed, all together, in a discreet veil of oil and condiments. Why
not? What, in peacetime, is to prevent it? Are we too busy being peaceful for
such play?” (p. 24)
I made this lovely salad last night using roasted potatoes,
snap peas, French green beans, baby
It was probably one of the best meals I have had in a long
time. I hope you will try it, my friend and share with me your joys of eating
simple.
I remain,
The Mad List Maker
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