M.F.K Fisher

[srhcb]

In other words, I suggest that maybe the others descend, by degree, on the basis of the intensity of personal baggage dragged along by their food writing?

←

But then again, it can be looked at the other way, too. It may have been her "personal baggage" used well that made her who she was as a writer.

Unless that is what you meant but said upside down.

At risk of confusing the matter even further; yes, but upside down would have had the other writers ascending from MFKF?

I guess one would have to decide whether personal baggage is something that "belongs" in food writing. Or if it should remain hidden, covered by the food entirely. Blanketed by the food. Untasteable.

←

Writing without personal baggage is possible. It's called "technical writing". Straight recipes would fall into this category.

In my opinion, food writing should contain as much "personal baggage" as possible. Think of it as "distinctive flavor".

SB

[Carrot Top]

I think a lot of the "food writing" that exists falls more under the aegis of "journalism" than "creative writing". That it might be so due to market demand is plausible. But naturally, all plausabilities, to my mind, exist simply to be poked at.

Anais Nin just came to mind as a writer who MFK reminds me of in ways, or the other way around, whatever. With the general body of their writings, in ways. Though its been a long while since I read Nin, so I'll have to take a closer look to be sure.

(Just imagine. . .if MFK had written a book of erotica, as Nin did.)

[MaxH]

I suppose MFK Fisher didn't invent food writing like Edison invented the telephone.  She was more like the anonymous Neanderthal who "invented" fire.  (I hope I didn't offend the Geico Caveman?)  Both fire and food writing already existed, but but the general population was made aware of their use by the Neanderthal's and MFKF's presentations. . . .  I'm interested in learning what others think?

Thanks srhcb (I just returned to this thread and caught up). The distinction you spotlighted between "food writing" and writing directly about food seemed to me excellent, and worth exploring.

Regarding earlier writers, I thought of Marcel Rouff (1925), an acknowledged (and quoted) influence on mainstream 20th-c. authors popular in the US. Surely including MFKF herself. (I mentioned Rouff in another thread Here.) Also Dumas's food "dictionary" (popular in US in Colman's edition, 1958) which, like Rouff, is full of parable and allegory; it concentrates its author's longstanding interest. To another point here, 15 years ago when I remarked that Rouff's book was a mixture of food and sex, a friend shrugged "Of course! It's French!" Much of this applies too to Grimod de la Reynière (d. 1837) who predated Dumas, crops up by allusion all over the place, and may have been more prolific as a "food writer" than all of these others together including MFKF (whose original career by the way was, if I remember right, writing for Hollywood and not all of whose books have even incidentally to do with food). These, and MFKF, all seem to me part of a continuum of writers I've run into, mainstream in their time and later, who express this idea of "food writing."

I don't claim expertise on this literature: these are just some of the authors I've run into repeatedly, as a reader alert to food. If I did any research, I might identify many others from various countries. (I wouldn't start online, because this is exactly the kind of subject matter where easy public online sources give thin or highly skewed representation. And are excellent mythmakers as I could show in other genres).

Maybe I'm over-sensitized now to claims of historical novelty. Thanks to recent published assertions about, say, the 1976 Spurrier (US-France) wine tasting, or who in the US pioneered mainstream writing about French cooking. (Assertions that contradict longstanding and easily available information.) This issue isn't limited to food by the way, it's a problem even in unrelated and scholarly subjects.

[Carrot Top]

I find it curious that women in this discussion can find her so lacking in human sympathy as even to call her a bitch. Her sympathy for tortured human creatures is profoundly generous.

←

Have you had the opportunity to read the two biographies of her? It likely is not from her writings that women might consider her a bitch if they do, but rather from biographic reports of specific incidents in her own "real" life that would infer the personal traits that would make other women call her that.

One can have a profoundly generous sympathy for tortured human creatures and yet. . . . still be capable of inflicting torture upon other human creatures through personal actions taken. . .

Some might be thinking of the old adage "Actions speak louder than words."

I guess on these things each individual must finally choose the side to take that suits them best, then be ready to live with the consequences of that philosophic choice should the same reality ever pop up in their own life. . . realizing that to excuse actions undertaken by someone who knowingly will dole out pain to others should be of equal import as excusing those actions taken if they were directly and explicitly aimed at you.

Edited January 21, 2007 by Carrot Top (log)

[srhcb]

I find it curious that women in this discussion can find her so lacking in human sympathy as even to call her a bitch.

I was also surprised when the vitripution directed toward MFKF approached a level usually reserved in this forum for Rachel Ray! Still, none denied her writing ability, so I just accept it as a matter of "to each, their own".

Her sympathy for tortured human creatures is profoundly generous. Whenever I reread Long Ago in France, her late autobiography of her early student years, I am taken back to a time and place as vividly imprinted in my memory as my own youthful experiences. It is full of characters that could so easily have been turned into comic caricatures, Peter Mayle fashion, but every one is sketched with a generous sympathy that shames either scorn or snickering. Those few people I know who knew her well respect her person as well as her art. In her writing, her most mercilous personal criticisms were always of herself.

←

Frankness, when encountered in the first or second person, is often unpleasant, even objectionable. But it's unarguably fair.

From my third person perspective, as a reader, that's all I ask.

SB

[John Whiting]

I find myself less and less interested in the personal lives of artists. We live in an age so scurrilously preoccupied with gossip and so eager to debunk and discredit that we take a public figure's worst behavior, however atypical, as the true measure of their worth and sincerity. In his autobiographical Reflexions, Richard Olney positively smacks his lips over Fisher's mistaken memory, an unspecified number of years later, of her nocturnal visit to him in 1970, but the effect is to make one lose a certain respect for the author rather than the subject. Alice Waters, whose integrity I have witnessed for years, has often been belittled by her inferiors and endures it with dignity.

I read what Fisher wrote; I am not interested in her personal failings, whether real or imaginary, any more than I would listen to the Art of the Fugue and wonder if its genius might be vitiated by Bach's business ethics or sex life.

Edited January 21, 2007 by John Whiting (log)

[srhcb]

I read what Fisher wrote; I am not interested in her personal failings, whether real or imaginary, any more than I would listen to the Art of the Fugue and wonder if its genius might be vitiated by Bach's business ethics or sex life.

←

An excellent point.

There is, of course, the argument that knowing more about an author, artist, composer,etc, can give you a better understanding of their work.

Perhaps, but understanding doesn't always enhance appreciation, and once you've learned something, it's impossible to unlearn it.

Once again, to each, their own.

SB (I guess?)

Edited January 21, 2007 by srhcb (log)

[Carrot Top]

I find myself less and less interested in the personal lives of artists.

←

I would agree with you there, completely.

But then again, the women that wrote of feeling betrayed in a sense by MFK may have read her differently, may have read her more personally, may have read her as someone who spoke in her readings of how to live.

I can see how you read her as a person, but can also see quite clearly (as a woman) of how she could be read as a woman, and can guess at how she might be read as a woman by a man (all in a general sense, setting aside for the moment the specifics of personality in all the readers cases).

To each one their own sort of reading, as well as to each one their own sort of take on other things.

I can (and am, this time) reading her in a different way than I did in the times before, and that there is this depth to read at all, in very different ways over the years, says much to me about the writing. As to the rest of it, I would like to be able to read her free and clear of the personal life attached. We'll see if I finally manage it.

On the other hand, "scholarly" reading, the sort that is done in academic circles, demands that one take into account as much as one possibly can not only about the writer themself and how they lived their life up to and including the culture they live(d) within, in order to "fully" understand for purposes of critique, the writing, no?

[Carrot Top]

listen to the Art of the Fugue and wonder if its genius might be vitiated by Bach's business ethics or sex life.

←

I'm always interested in everyone's sex life.

[John Whiting]

On the other hand, "scholarly" reading, the sort that is done in academic circles, demands that one take into account as much as one possibly can not only about the writer themself and how they lived their life up to and including the culture they live(d) within, in order to "fully" understand for purposes of critique, the writing, no?

This is a professional necessity for those who earn a living by continually coming up with information and opinions not previously expressed by their competitors. In order to be both profitable and exciting, the stock market of ideas must rise and fall unpredictably and arbitrarily.

[lia]

I was a bit relieved finding out that she was a "right bitch" and that some of the writing of her younger years was either a result of elaboration or vivid imagination. She became more human to me...even with all the tragedies, her life seemed so charmed, almost mystical.

Then again, the woman dealt with failed marriages, suicides, a troubled child, money woes...She watched the love of her life die "too slowly" and also had the privilege of hearing him blow his brains out (unless that was one of her elaborations) so I'm fully prepared to forgive her for any mean streak she may have shown the people in her life.

[Carrot Top]

I was a bit relieved finding out that she was a "right bitch" and that some of the writing of her younger years was either a result of elaboration or vivid imagination.   She became more human to me...even with all the tragedies,  her life seemed so charmed, almost mystical.

Then again,  the woman dealt with failed marriages,  suicides,  a troubled child,  money woes...She watched the love of her life die "too slowly" and also had the privilege of hearing him blow his brains out (unless that was one of her elaborations) so I'm fully prepared to forgive her for any mean streak she may have shown the people in her life.

←

Oh yes. All true, what you say, and I can agree. My stomach churns at the immensity of all this (if, as you say, the details are true, but even if they are not exactly true her plate was filled with more than enough for one woman - particularly one who stood quite alone often - to deal with).

But here is my question: (I find that no longer can I avoid asking it for fear those who have not read the biographies will happily be able to avoid thinking of these things.)

Did she sleep with married men?

For *that* is where I think the crux of disappointment with her might lay, with women who have heard this or read this. Not that she was just "mean" or "bitchy" or even someone who had many lovers.

This is something that many women will not forgive in a woman they felt they had placed trust in. It is a form of meanness that is difficult to accept or forgive, particularly when one realizes the chaos that can follow in the lives of those whom the action envelops. It is hard to forgive a meanness that can involve not only adults but by extension, their children, those times when this action leads to more trouble within that difficult and delicate balancing act called "marriage".

I don't really know whether this is true or not - I discarded the one biography I owned because I did not want to read it again, and the contents of the second biography are only hearsay to me, so that is rather moot.

At this point I don't even really want to know the answer, really.

It's a shame it had to be asked. It's a shame, maybe, that we have to know the people we read are sometimes very far from what we would wish them to be. But I guess it's better to go through the fire rather than around it, in terms of dealing with these things, once the wind has started to blow. There is really no escape.

(And I'm also pretty sure that if I had to analyze the ethics and morals of every writer I ever read before I read them, or do the same before buying groceries at the store, or anything else, then act upon my own feelings of outrage or disappointment in what I found out about the people I was dealing with every day, probably the best bet would be to become a hermit and do nothing but whittle a piece of wood into sailboats all day long.)

..................................

Again, I note - obviously, what one does in bed, and whether it is considered to be "mainstream" enough to be considered acceptable or moral at the time. . . is not something that *should* be linked to an author's writerly prowess.

But then again, the shape these writings took made many of her readers feel that she was leading them somewhere. . .that she was a leader. In particular it seems that women have had this sense with MFK (from "anecdotal" information). When one acts as leader, one can be challenged to act as one hopes a leader would act, in ways large and small in "real life".

Of course she may never have intended to be considered in this way, as a "leader". The writings may have done it by themselves without her consent, so the linking of expectations to MFK herself as a person may be just a will-o-the-wisp created by stories loved and therefore made real in ways they never were expected to by the author.

And actually, in final analysis, that is what I think. That perhaps she never expected to be read or loved as deeply as she finally proved to be. Hoped for it, maybe. Knew it would happen, no. So I can not link the life and the writing any more. The writing stands alone, separate.

Edited January 22, 2007 by Carrot Top (log)

[Carrot Top]

Here's the first post in this topic for anyone who cares to refocus on it:

Before me sits The Art of Eating. It's my third copy, the first fallen apart at the seams after much travel and life in some possibly strange places. . .the second given away as gift to a cook I once knew who could cook but who somehow could not taste, in some basic and important way within her mind.

"Five gastronomical works" in one volume. Serve It Forth; Consider the Oyster; How to Cook a Wolf; The Gastronomical Me; An Alphabet for Gourmets.

These individual works seem to hold different flavors for me, though each one is spun through with  MFK's essence.

Which book of these would be your favorite, if you *had* to choose?

Why?

←

[MT-Tarragon]

I read The Art of Eating last year for the first time.  Started with An Alphabet for Gourmets, which I think I enjoyed most.  How to Cook a Wolf, which is what I'd most wanted to read from having heard about it, was the least interesting of the collected works to me - go figure.

←

I read AoE a few years ago now. I haven't read any other works by or about MFKF. I think that I enjoyed How to Cook a Wolf the most. Something about the "making do" aspect, perhaps, as opposed to some of the others that seemed more luxurious/indulgent.

This thread is the first that I have heard of the less savoury aspects of MFKF's personal life. I find that it doesn't bother me too much, probably because her writing did not have a great impact on my life (though I did find it very enjoyable). But I can understand how someone could feel betrayed. Someone earlier talked about the difficulty of forgiving a woman you trusted for sleeping with married men. From my male perspective, I look at wedding vows as one of the most important (if not the most important) promises that one will ever make. If a person cannot be trusted to hold that vow (or could help another break that vow, can I trust them to hold to any lesser promise? I don't think so. Such a person would be forever suspect in my eyes. Harsh, perhaps, but it is my opinion. This has hurt me among those I have known, or have trusted without knowing, so I can understand those who feel betrayed by MFKF, even if the source of the feeling follows a different logical route.

[srhcb]

But I can understand how someone could feel betrayed.  Someone earlier talked about the difficulty of forgiving a woman you trusted for sleeping with married men.  From my male perspective, I look at wedding vows as one of the most important (if not the most important) promises that one will ever make.  If a person cannot be trusted to hold that vow (or could help another break that vow, can I trust them to hold to any lesser promise?  I don't think so.  Such a person would be forever suspect in my eyes.  Harsh, perhaps, but it is my opinion.  This has hurt me among those I have known, or have trusted without knowing, so I can understand those who feel betrayed by MFKF, even if the source of the feeling follows a different logical route.

←

Thanks for offering an additional male perspective on the sub-subject of authors' fidelity affecting appreciation of their writing.

While men have traditionally been critisized, perhaps fairly, for holding maritial vows in less reverence than women, I agree that a promise is a person's word, and a (wo)man is only as good as their word.

It certainly doesn't mean they can't write good prose though. Remember, it takes two to "tango", while, (to inject a food-centric reference), it only takes one hand to break and egg, or write about it.

SB

[jess mebane]

Here's the first post in this topic for anyone who cares to refocus on it:

Before me sits The Art of Eating. It's my third copy, the first fallen apart at the seams after much travel and life in some possibly strange places. . .the second given away as gift to a cook I once knew who could cook but who somehow could not taste, in some basic and important way within her mind.

"Five gastronomical works" in one volume. Serve It Forth; Consider the Oyster; How to Cook a Wolf; The Gastronomical Me; An Alphabet for Gourmets.

These individual works seem to hold different flavors for me, though each one is spun through with  MFK's essence.

Which book of these would be your favorite, if you *had* to choose?

Why?

←

←

Here, Here!

I'm finishing up Serve, and looking forward to more spirited discussion about the next text, neighbors.

And to the gent or lady upthread who mentioned the 'level of vitriput... [sic] usually reserved for the likes of Rachel [sic-er] Ray', I say, "Pshaw!!" You should have seen the bloodbath we had over poor ol' Jeff Smith a few years ago.....

[ruthcooks]

I didn't have to read any biographies to detect MFK's "streak of mean." I read her many, many years ago and, meanness aside, think I never really got over her "passion" for catsup on mashed potatoes.

She does not have a corner on the arrogance market, however. I can't tell you how disappointed I was to hear Julia Child make a comment that it is irresponsible not to provide financially for your retirement years. It would be ideal, surely, but think of all those people who are hand to mouth their entire lives. (And her with a trust fund from her youth.)

While I'm at it, might as well admit I don't worship at the altar of John Thorne, either. If I recall, his last book featured chapters on plain rice and dry toast. Food to choke on does not appeal to me. I did enjoy, however, the chapter on his search for Roald Dahl's best cookies in the world.

[Carrot Top]

There certainly exist some unpalatable facts we have to eat in life.

Then of course, it is also a fact (hmmm. Do I need to attach an annotated bibliography for this? I hope not. It would take time and be boring ), as they say, that "History is not made by well-behaved women." *

I'm going to start in on reading MFK on Oysters, soon. Just needed a break.

* (Yes, I do think that needed emboldening. Reminder: Go out into the world and mis-behave! ) (Just not meanly. )

[Kouign Aman]

I've devoured AoE on this read. I've finished. I think I'll go back and start again, to cement it in my brain a bit better.

What appeals to me is her humanity & sensuality, vividly put on the page. She writes about food as it affects all of her, not just her tastebuds, and she writes how her interest in foods changes with her mood/situation/age.

I need the book in front of me to find wordperfect examples of her ?images?*, but in "Z for Z...", she writes (parenthetically) that she's never had enough caviar, tho once she ate a pound over the time of a day and the space of infinite imagination, (I have the wording similar, if not exact). That description evokes an actual physical reaction in me - much more than would "caviar is delicious, it is my favorite food, I travel miles in my mind when I eat it".

*images isnt quite right, as the effect is more than visual. "Evokings", as a noun, is not a word. Is there a word that means the same?

She presents her philosophy of life, sometimes dictatorially and sometimes as an option that works for her. If hers is completely alien to yours, I expect she'd be no fun to read. In many ways, I find hers to be reassuring. She allows for the practical, while maintaining high standards. And sometimes she sounds like a complete twit which also makes me laugh.

There is a mean streak, it shows occasionally and overtly, such as when she spoils an 'oh so refined' lady's enjoyment of a huge lunch, and when she and Al laugh at a man who is chasing after them on a train platform. The man is distraught that Al left without saying good-bye. I get the feeling the laughter was involuntary, but it was nevertheless mean. Ok, she's human. Want more examples of mean-streak, to balance the humanity? Cause I think most of us have one, even if we never give it free rein. Check out the Practical Jokes thread going on right now.

Earlier there was much discussion of the annoyance of "Chexbres" (the word, not the person) appearing so often. I found it didnt bother me. What I did find myself noticing is that she wrote about Al, Chexbres, and then "my husband". Made me wonder why the guy didnt get a name? Perhaps his choice.

One style thing that bothers me is her use of parentheses, particularly in How To Cook a Wolf. The comments themselves, made at a later date than the original work, are interesting for the most part. But, in many cases, they are so awkwardly inserted in the text that reading it becomes difficult. I think she'd be better served then to have inserted the () at the end of the sentence in question and I'm surprised her editors didnt make that change.

editted to improve clarity via sentence structure, etc.

Edited January 25, 2007 by Kouign Aman (log)

[MT-Tarragon]

*images isnt quite right, as the effect is more than visual. "Evokings", as a noun, is not a word. Is there a word that means the same?

←

Evocation

[srhcb]

*images isnt quite right, as the effect is more than visual. "Evokings", as a noun, is not a word. Is there a word that means the same?

←

That's as good a summation of MFKF's writing as I've seen, real word or not.

SB (big fan of parentheses)

[racheld]

SB (big fan of parentheses)

←

That way you can leave all the dashes for me---thanks!!

[Carrot Top]

There is a mean streak, it shows occasionally and overtly, such as when she spoils an 'oh so refined' lady's enjoyment of a huge lunch, and when she and Al laugh at a man who is chasing after them on a train platform. The man is distraught that Al left without saying good-bye. I get the feeling the laughter was involuntary, but it was nevertheless mean. Ok, she's human.  Want more examples of mean-streak, to balance the humanity? Cause I think most of us have one, even if we never give it free rein. Check out the Practical Jokes thread going on right now.

Earlier there was much discussion of the annoyance of "Chexbres" (the word, not the person) appearing so often. I found it didnt bother me. What I did find myself noticing is that she wrote about Al, Chexbres, and then "my husband". Made me wonder why the guy didnt get a name? Perhaps his choice.

One style thing that bothers me is her use of parentheses, particularly in How To Cook a Wolf.  The comments themselves, made at a later date than the original work, are interesting for the most part. But, in many cases,  they are so awkwardly inserted in the text that reading it becomes difficult. I think she'd be better served then to have inserted the () at the end of the sentence in question and I'm surprised her editors didnt make that change.

←

I remember the old lady at lunch and how MFK let loose with a sentence that struck at the old lady's severe aplomb. To me, MFK was not being mean there, for honestly I think people like that old lady who walk around being so personally pompous and obviously posturing, then actually expecting all the people around to play along with their personal ego game (without the least bit of humor involved), are rather absurd and in some ways are overstepping the bounds of reality in the first place in expecting others to bend to suit their strained posture. I think the old lady was mean, and MFK was just right.

The man chasing after them on a train platform because Al did not say goodbye was more touching (though I haven't read it yet this time, but I do remember it a bit) but still I have to have the same attitude. I can not say that MFK was being mean here.

There was a guy once, a waiter, who worked for my ex-husband. Somehow he got a severe crush on him. He would follow him from place to place, geographically, to work at the next place exH managed. Knowing my ex, who knows whether he encouraged him, even if just for the ego boost of it, or not. But anyway, there was not a whole lot of reality going on in this guy's mind. He followed a married man and his wife and children around the country, waving much as the guy in MFK's story did. . .sad, yes, but should one always need to feel deep compassion for those obviously out of whack that go around imposing their own (un) reality onto other's situations? I don't think so. Do it too much and you can end up losing your own sense of personal reality.

If anyone on that train platform was mean, it was Al. For it was he that the fellow loved somehow. MFK was the wife, watching. Better to laugh than to cry, perhaps? Actually I feel rather contemptous of Al for allowing that to happen to both his wife and the fellow. Actually I rather feel like punching him in the nose.

Al, Chexbres, and "her husband" - Al she probably did not think of as her husband because of some things. Chexbres, that was another unusual relationship in ways. The third one, Donald Friede, was a publisher and literary agent who "orchestrated her career" to use the words of Joan Reardon. Maybe he was the only one she really thought of as her "husband". . .or maybe she didn't want to use his name too much as it might remind her or others of the link to a specific sort of support system for her career that she had married into.

I'll have to take a look at this parenthesis thing. Never noticed it before.

(I can't believe you are delving in once more . Will be interesting to see what other thoughts you come up with as you go along. . . )

Edited January 26, 2007 by Carrot Top (log)

[Kouign Aman]

Actually, pompous lady had forgotten to be pompous for once, and was enjoying a huge tucker with visceral pleasure. MFKF took that way and sent her back to her pompous prison. The writing makes it sound deliberate. That was mean. Re the guy on the train platform - laughing where he could see it was flat rude. Laugh after he's out of sight for petes sake. But as I noted before, it reads as if it were involuntary. Ok, people are mean sometimes. Pretty much all of us. Doesnt make me dislike MFKF or not want to read her. In fact, it probably helps my enjoyment. She has to be whitewashing a lot (we do want people to see us in a good light, yes?) but she shares these bits.

Delving back in - well I read the thing cover to cover in what, a week? Not so hard to delve back. I'll probably skip bits this time.

Another thing I enjoy is her recipes calling for "herbs". She's so strong in my largest area of culinary weakness. I cant use herbs without a recipe to save my life! Any recipe of hers that I followed would be bland or inedible. So I admire and aspire to that ability she takes for granted.

I did laugh at her tiny samples of adult foods for her kids. Times have changed!

There's a point when they've returned to Europe to close the Swiss house and buy painkillers for Chexbres, where it sounds like he's already decided to suicide when it gets too bad, and she knows it.

Edited January 26, 2007 by Kouign Aman (log)

[Carrot Top]

Actually, pompous lady had forgotten to be pompous for once, and was enjoying a huge tucker with visceral pleasure. MFKF took that way and sent her back to her pompous prison. The writing makes it sound deliberate. That was mean.    Re the guy on the train platform - laughing where he could see it was flat rude.  Laugh after he's out of sight for petes sake. But as I noted before, it reads as if it were involuntary. 

←

Eh. Perhaps I believe in a bit of rudeness now and then.

........................................

I think I'm sorting her stories at this point into two categories at least - those that read like a fictional tale (where one tries to fit in as much interesting "action" at every twist and turn possible to keep the reader engaged) and those that read rather like a fable, as in when she speaks of the riches of days past, the appetites of men (Hmm. What about the female appetite? How about "When a Woman is Small?" as title and story? That would be fun. . .) in the stories like "When a Man is Small" and "Greek Honey. ." with a fable's ending that hints of philosophic morality in some essential way.

...........................................

I'm curious as to what recipes you've used, and which ones other people have used, and liked or disliked of MFK's. The first thing that comes to mind for me is her recipe for "Eggplant Caviar" (I believe there are three of them in a row in the book) which is simple and beautiful to me, rich and unctuous, and which is rather daring to eat among those you don't know well from the massive amounts of garlic that perfume it. . . .

Edited January 26, 2007 by Carrot Top (log)