14 replies to this topic

[Chad]

Help! In a recent interview with Michael Ruhlman, he quoted M.F.K. Fisher, "Any chef worth his salt keeps his knives sharp as lightning."

It's a great quote and I'd like to use it in my book but I can't find it anywhere to verify the wording and the attribution. I've spent the last couple of days trying to track it down. Can someone more familiar with her works possibly point me in the right direction?

Thanks, folks. I appreciate it.

Chad

[srhcb]

Help! In a recent interview with Michael Ruhlman, he quoted M.F.K. Fisher, "Any chef worth his salt keeps his knives sharp as lightning."

It doesn't ring a bell with me.

One "problem" with MFK Fisher's writing style in that it's hard to index, and hence hard to even Google.

The quote sounds to me more like something Julia Child would say, but why not email Ruhlman and ask him?

SB

Edited by srhcb, 04 January 2007 - 09:23 AM.

[Chad]

Yep, I did just that. He's not exactly sure. He said it came from one of her essays, one that also mentions the prevalence of jail time among chefs. Possibly from "How to Cook a Wolf." I'll pick up the book this weekend to see if I can find the quote. In the meantime, does this ring a bell for anyone?

Thanks again,
Chad

[srhcb]

Yep, I did just that. He's not exactly sure. He said it came from one of her essays, one that also mentions the prevalence of jail time among chefs. Possibly from "How to Cook a Wolf." I'll pick up the book this weekend to see if I can find the quote. In the meantime, does this ring a bell for anyone?

Thanks again,
Chad

I skimed through "How to Cook a Wolf", but didn't spot anything like that. (I never pass up any excuse to read MFKF! )

Maybe you could try Les Dames d'Escoffier International ?

SB

[Chad]

I will definitely give them a try. Thanks for the heads up. I had no idea such an organization existed.

Chad

[racheld]

There's a book club a-startin' in this topic, and everyone's going to re-read The Art of Eating, so maybe one of us will run across your quote soon. And please join in, if you have or haven't read it.

[Lady T]

I re-read The A of E once or twice a year, give or take, and so help me, I don't recall a "sharp as lightning" anywhere in the volume.

Good excuse to re-read it once more...

[srhcb]

I re-read The A of E once or twice a year, give or take, and so help me, I don't recall a "sharp as lightning" anywhere in the volume.

Good excuse to re-read it once more...

I also did a cursory check, to no avail, to see if perhaps the line might be attributable to either Julia Child, (speaking jokingly), or Ruth Reichel, (speaking seriously).

It would be an easy mistake to make.

SB (often misquoted and misquoter)

[MaxH]

One "problem" with MFK Fisher's writing style in that it's hard to index, and hence hard to even Google.

(Not to mention -- a more general point -- that many, many good quotations aren't online anyway -- the updated equivalent of "not in Bartlett's." And therefore not Googlable. Even if well known in print, or among enthusiasts. Unless someone happens to post them in a thread like this one, for example.)

-- Max


The Brillat-Savarins came of heroic stock and all died at the dinner-table, fork in hand. Brillat's great-aunt, for example, died at the age of 93 while sipping a glass of old Virieu, while Pierrette, his sister, two months before her hundredth birthday, uttered (at table) the following last words which are forever enshrined in the memory of good Frenchmen: `Vite,' she cried, `apportez-moi le dessert -- je sens que je vais passer!'

-- Lawrence Durrell, preface. Marcel Rouff, The Passionate Epicure; La Vie et la Passion de Dodin-Bouffant, Gourmet, Delamain, Poutelleau et Cie., 1925. English translation by Claude [sic], E. P. Dutton, 1962. LCC number 62-7803. This book was well known to anglophone cooking readers of the generation that saw the translation appear in the early 1960s. It is cited in cooking writings by Julia Child, Marcella Hazan, and others.

[etamny]

Yep, I did just that. He's not exactly sure. He said it came from one of her essays, one that also mentions the prevalence of jail time among chefs. Possibly from "How to Cook a Wolf." I'll pick up the book this weekend to see if I can find the quote. In the meantime, does this ring a bell for anyone?

Thanks again,
Chad

I can't keep up with eGullet most of the time, but I ran across this post and had to do a little digging.

I was quite sure it's not in Art of Eating, thought perhaps in an introduction (Dubious Honors) or one of the newly-published rarer magazine pieces, or maybe in With Bold Knife and Fork. Didn't see it anywhere there, so I asked Joan Reardon, who wrote the Fisher bio. She thought to check Conversations With (good idea), other intros and didn't see it. Her best guess:

"The only thing I can think of is a published piece on her address to Jay Perkin’s Culinary School graduation in Santa Rosa, but don’t know the source. MFKF didn’t write very much about professional chefs--"

That's the thing I was thinking, too, as the biggest clue--she didn't write about pros much, but that didn't get me far. Anyhow, thought you might want the lead.

Yours in elliptical Fisher prose--

[srhcb]

....I asked Joan Reardon, who wrote the Fisher bio.  She thought to check Conversations With (good idea), other intros and didn't see it.  Her best guess:

"The only thing I can think of is a published piece on her address to Jay Perkin’s Culinary School graduation in Santa Rosa, but don’t know the source. MFKF didn’t write very much about professional chefs--"

That's the thing I was thinking, too, as the biggest clue--she didn't write about pros much, but that didn't get me far.  Anyhow, thought you might want the lead.

Yours in elliptical Fisher prose--

That was another one of my concerns.

It's quite possible Michael Ruhlman was mistaken, considering how much food writing he's read, but it's an interesting quote, and should be attributed to someone, if not MFKF.

SB (will take undue credit if nobody else claims it )

[Chad]

Wow! Thank you so much. I really appreciate the thought and effort. A quick search brought me to the M.F.K. Fisher collection at the Harvard Library. There is mention of a Jay Perkins/Fisher scholarship and a couple of commencement addresses to the California Culinary Academy that seem promising. I'll have to see if they can help me track down this quote.

Thanks again,
Chad

Edited to add: Steve, you're exactly right. It is a great quote and I'm determined to use it with appropriate attribution.

Edited by Chad, 22 January 2007 - 12:56 PM.

[etamny]

Edited to add: Steve, you're exactly right. It is a great quote and I'm determined to use it with appropriate attribution.

I have to admit: my *very* first thought? That it wasn't Fisher. But that doesn't mean anything. I went searching for her journal entry about E.M. Forster/E.F. Benson the other day and was surprised to rediscover on a nearby page that she had commented on the Duncan Hines guide (forgot she had). I think I know Fisher pretty well, but even--especially--with those you know well it's amazing how much you can be surprised.

Good luck! Let us know what you find!

[gbguy71]

I know that this is an old, old thread, but I might have the answer. From a Baltimore Sun article. The following is from Fisher's translation of "The Physiology of Taste: Or, Meditations on Transcendental Gastronomy," by Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin. It appears that Ruhlman was a bit loose with the quote.

She gives no quarter. In her notes on the chapter "Theory of Frying," she observes: "Most cooks, it would seem, are misunderstood wretches, ill-housed, dyspeptic, with aching broken arches. They turn more eagerly than any other artists to the bottle, the needle, and more vicious pleasures; they grow irritable; finally, they seize upon the nearest weapon, which if they are worth their salt is a long knife sharp as lightning . . . and they are in San Quentin."

[runwestierun]

Wow. It's even greater in context.