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By Allison Tyler
| Thursday, May 08, 2014 - Off the Shelf
“Is there any lover of food or prose who hasn’t already read The Art of Eating?” I
asked myself, while ordering a new copy of M. F. K. Fisher’s classic
compilation. Although I’d read it many times I wanted to reread it, but my
book was overloved and missing half its pages. I ordered the 50th
Anniversary Edition, and when it arrived I took it to bed and cracked it
open, excited, as if reading it for the first time. That’s the crux of my
attachment to this tome: it simultaneously feels like an old friend, and a
new one. When I read Fisher’s words now I still feel the same sense of
discovery and enchantment I’ve felt since the first time I read her words,
way back when I was too young to understand their complexities.
This new edition contains an insightful introduction by
Clifton Fadiman, a retrospective essay by Joan Reardon (Fisher’s
biographer), and memories from Fisher’s daughters, Anna and Kennedy, and
her sister Norah. Appreciation from James Beard, Alice Waters, Julia Child,
and other Fisher admirers round out the roster.
If I could have only two books to read for the rest of my
life, The Art of Eating—comprised
of Fisher’s Serve it
Forth, Consider
the Oyster, How
to Cook a Wolf, The
Gastronomical Me, and An
Alphabet of Gourmets—would be one of them. (The other would be Up in the Old Hotel.)
It is an enormous book, with deeply researched topics, sharp-eyed
observations, matter-of-fact declarations, intimate ponderings, and a most
confident voice, the perfect antidote to cooking in the digital age, where
everyone can, and too often does, declare themselves an expert.
We are bombarded by food bloggers, diners posting photos of
their meals on social media, the so-called food porn of Pinterest, and
developments such as 3-D food printing and edible rice paper QR codes, to
say nothing of kale overload and hipsters lining up to fork over six
dollars for a slice of toast.
The Art of Eating is the
opposite of all that, yet it is also the analog version of all that, too. I
can’t help but wonder whether, if Fisher were alive today, she would be a
social media maven. The way she writes about food makes me wish there were
a blogger whose posts could compare, so that I could read such satisfying
words every day. When she describes a luxurious and abundant meal eaten
alone in an empty restaurant, served by an earnest, nearly obsessed young
waitress, I can picture the waitress in stark detail, and almost taste
every course she sets down. But oh, how I’d love to see Fisher’s Instagram
feed of that feast! I imagine her Facebook posts would be full of
humblebrags, prone as Fisher was to casting herself as the star of close to
every essay. Her pithy passages, always on point, might turn Twitter on its
beak:
“We sink too easily into stupid and overfed sensuality, our
bodies thickening even more quickly than our minds.”
“Probably one of the most private things in the world is an
egg before it is broken.”
“First we eat, then we do everything else.”
“But if I must be alone, I refuse to be alone as if it were
something weak and distasteful, like convalescence.”
It is cliché, as well as erroneous, to say that anything,
including food, is “comfort food.” Comfort is not always universal. When
I’m exhausted and hungry, I want chilaquiles dotted with Frank’s Red Hot. I
suspect others would not find this dish as welcome. What I do know is that
for anyone who likes good w... READ
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