M.F.K. Fisher, whom John Updike has called our "poet of the appetites," here pays tribute to that most delicate and enigmatic of foods---the oyster. As she tells of oysters found in stews, in soups, roasted, baked, fried, prepared a la Rockefeller or au naturel--and of the pearls sometimes found therein--Fisher describes her mother's joy at encountering oyster loaf in a girls' dorm in he 1890's, recalls her own initiation into the "strange cold succulence" of raw oysters as a young woman in Marseille and Dijon, and explores both the bivalve's famed aphrodisiac properties and its equally notorious gut-wrenching powers. Plumbing the "dreadful but exciting" life of the oyster, Fisher invites readers to share in the comforts and delights that this delicate edible evokes, and enchants us along the way with her characteristically wise and witty prose.

‘I was a brash newcomer to it, and yet when I first felt the rhythm of its streets and smelled its ancient smells, I said, “Of course”, for I was once more in my own place, an invader of what was already mine.’

M. F. K. Fisher moved to Aix-en-Provence with her young daughters after the Second World War.In Map of Another Town, she traces the history of this ancient and famous town, known for its tree-lined avenues, pretty fountains and ornate façades. Beyond the tourist sights, Fisher introduces us to its inhabitants:the waiters and landladies, down-and-outs and local characters, all recovering from the effects of the war in a drastically new France.

Fisher is known as one of America’s most celebrated food writers; here she gives us a fascinating portrait of a place. It is, as she confesses, a self-portrait: ‘my picture, my map, of a place and therefore of myself ’.This is an intimate travel memoir written in Fisher’s inimitable style – confident, confiding and always compelling.

With a new foreword by the award-winning food writer, Bee Wilson.

A memoir of travel, love, and loss, but above all hunger.

In 1929 M.F.K. Fisher left America for France, where she tasted real French cooking for the first time. It inspired a prolific career as a food and travel writer. In The Gastronomical Me Fisher traces the development of her appetite, from her childhood in America to her arrival in Europe, where she embarked on a whole new way of eating, drinking, and living. She recounts unforgettable meals shared with an assortment of eccentric characters, set against a backdrop of mounting pre-war tensions.

Here are meals as seductions, educations, diplomacies, and communions, in settings as diverse as a bedsit above a patisserie, a Swiss farm, and cruise liners across oceans. In prose convivial and confiding, Fisher illustrates the art of ordering well, the pleasures of dining alone, and how to eat so you always find nourishment, in both head and heart.

'An oyster leads a dreadful but exciting life.'

The celebrated American food writer M. F. K. Fisher pays tribute to that most delicate and enigmatic of foods: the oyster. She tells of oysters found in stews and soups, roasted, baked, fried, prepared à la Rockefeller or au naturel and of the pearls sometimes found therein.

As she describes each dish, Fisher recalls her own initiation into the 'strange cold succulence' of raw oysters as a young woman in Marseille and Dijon, and explores both the bivalve's famed aphrodisiac properties and its equally notorious gut-wrenching powers.

Plumbing the 'dreadful but exciting' life of the oyster, Fisher invites readers to share in the comforts and delights that this delicate edible evokes, and enchants us along the way with her characteristically wise and witty prose.

Written to inspire courage in those daunted by wartimes shortages, "How to Cook a Wolf" continues to rally cooks during times of plenty, reminding them that providing sustenance requires more than putting food on the table. M. F. K. Fisher knew that the last thing hungry people needed were hints on cutting back and making do. Instead, she gives her readers license to dream, to experiment, to construct adventurous and delicious meals as a bulwark against a dreary, meager present. Her fine prose provides reason in itself to draw our chairs close to the hearth; we can still enjoy her company and her exhortations to celebrate life by eating well.

RUTH REICHL
"Mary Frances [Fisher] has the extraordinary ability to make the ordinary seem rich and wonderful. Her dignity comes from her absolute insistence on appreciating life as it comes to her."
JULIA CHILD
"How wonderful to have here in my hands the essence of M.F.K. Fisher, whose wit and fulsome opinions on food and those who produce it, comment upon it, and consume it are as apt today as they were several decades ago, when she composed them. Why did she choose food and hunger she was asked, and she replied, 'When I write about hunger, I am really writing about love and the hunger for it, and warmth, and the love of it . . . and then the warmth and richness and fine reality of hunger satisfied.' This is the stuff we need to hear, and to hear again and again."
ALCIE WATERS
"This comprehensive volume should be required reading for every cook. It defines in a sensual and beautiful way the vital relationship between food and culture."

In one of her most celebrated books, the doyenne of food writers offers us more than 140 of her favourite and most famous recipes. Here are dishes for every course of every meal - from 'Teasers and Titbits', through 'Some Seeds of this Planet' to 'A Plethora of Puddings'. Whether simple or esoteric, all are served with an inimitable mixture of wit, anecdote and practicality.

A delightful and hilarious classic about the joys of the table, "The Physiology of Taste "is the most famous book about food ever written. First published in France in 1825 and continuously in print ever since, Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin's masterpiece is a historical, philosophical, and epicurean collection of recipes, reflections, and anecdotes on everything and anything gastronomical. Brillat-Savarin--who famously stated "Tell me what you eat and I shall tell you what you are"--shrewdly expounds upon culinary matters that still resonate today, from the rise of the destination restaurant to matters of diet and weight, and in M. F. K. Fisher, whose commentary is both brilliant and amusing, he has an editor with a sensitivity and wit to match his own.

In 1929, a newly married M.F.K. Fisher said goodbye to a milquetoast American culinary upbringing and sailed with her husband to Dijon, where she tasted real French cooking for the first time. "The Gastronomical Me" is a chronicle of her passionate embrace of a whole new way of eating, drinking, and celebrating the senses. As she recounts memorable meals shared with an assortment of eccentric and fascinating characters, set against a backdrop of mounting pre-war tensions, we witness the formation not only of her taste but of her character and her prodigious talent.

When Robert Lescher died in 2012 an unpublished manuscript of M.F.K. Fisher's was discovered neatly packed in the one of the literary agent's signature red boxes. Inspired by Fisher's affair with Dillwyn Parrish -- who was to become her second husband -- The Theoretical Foot is the master stylist's first novel. In it she describes the life she all-too-briefly had with the man she'd ever after describe as the one great love of her life. It tells of a late-summer idyll at the Swiss farmhouse of Tim and Sara, where guests have gathered at ease on the terrace next to the burbling fountain in which baby lettuces are being washed, there to enjoy the food and wine served them by this stylish American couple. But all around these seemingly fortunate people, the forces of darkness are gathering: The year is 1939; World War II approaches. And the paradise Tim and Sara have made is being besieged from within as Tim -- closely based on Parrish -- is about to suffer the first of the circulatory attacks that will cause him to lose his leg to amputation.

2013 Reprint of 1961 Edition. Exact facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. For many years Fisher collected lore about odd restoratives and remedies-medicines, nostrum, herbs, oils, powders, charms, poultices, liquors, brews and cure-alls for coughs, colds, sore throats, poisons, freckles and warts, nosebleeds, bites of insects and mad dogs, burns, rashes, rheumatism, excess weight, chills, fevers and wounds incurred in the mating season. Herein she recounts the origins, applications and apparent effectiveness of these unusual recipes in a group of essays in which wonder and wisdom, nostalgia and quiet humor are the main ingredients.

Whether the subject of her fancy is the lowly, unassuming potato or the love life of that aphrodisiac mollusk the oyster, Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher writes with a simplicity that belies the complexities of the life she often muses on. She is hailed as one of America's preeminent writers about gastronomy, but limiting her to that genre would be a disservice. A passionate and well-traveled woman, her narratives fill over two dozen highly acclaimed books. In this collection of some of her finest works, Fisher demonstrates a palette well-trained not only in gastronomical masterpieces, but in life's best pleasures as well.
Love in a Dish . . . and Other Culinary Delights is an instructional manual on how to live, eat, and love brought together by prolific researcher and culinary enthusiast Anne Zimmerman. With great care she has selected essays that forgive, and celebrate, our lustful appetites, as in Once a Tramp, Always . . . and Love in a Dish.
It is through these selections, including two essays never before collected in book form, that we encounter Fisher's bold passion for cuisine and an introduction to her idea of what constitutes the delicious life.

The woman who elevated food writing to an art is at her best in this mouthwatering collection of memoirs and recipes. Boldly confessing her prejudices and her passions, M.F.K Fisher includes more than 140 recipes in the 17 chapters of this book.
Dishes for every course of every meal can be found here, from the simplest to the most esoteric: tidbits, appetizers, breads, pastries, fish, fowl, meats, soups, vegetables, desserts, and casseroles.
Whether recalling forbidden fruits from her childhood (such as mashed potatoes with catsup), her mother's legendary mustard pickles, or a Caribbean bride singing about peas and rice, each description is flavored with the eloquence, warmth, and wit that became Fisher's hallmark. Among the many admirers Fisher accrued during her illustrious and varied career was W.H. Auden, who said of her, "I do not know of anyone in the United States who writes better prose."

Like the savory, simple dishes she favored, M. F. K. Fisher's writing was often "short, stylish, concentrated in flavor, and varied in form," writes Joan Reardon in her introduction to this eclectic, lively collection. Magazine writing launched and helped to sustain Fisher's long, illustrious career and in these fifty-seven pieces we experience again the inimitable voice of the woman widely known to have elevated food writing to a literary art.
"A Stew or a Story" covers five decades of Fisher's writing for such notable and diverse publications as "Gourmet, Bon Appetit, Ladies Home Journal, Atlantic Monthly, Harper's Bazaar, The New York Times, The New Yorker," and "Vogue." But collected here also are articles nearly impossible to find from lesser-known, more ephemeral magazines. Essays on people, places, and of course food, mix here with delightful fiction to become a delectable feast.

First published in 1961, A Cordiall Water collects a charming mixed bag of nostrums, elixirs, restoratives, and fortifiers and intersperces them with autobiographical anecdotes from M. F. K. Fisher's life in California, Provence, Mexico and Switzerland. These engaging recipes, "a perfect combination of superstition, instinct, and primitive knowledge" deal with commonplace ailments--sore throats, cures for cats, aging skin, fevers, PMS and hangovers. Ingredients of these extraordinary receipts are transformed into cures and preventatives told in the inimitable style of this master of the finely observed life.

Originally published in 1970, Among Friends provides a fascinating glimpse into the background and development of one of our most delightful and best-loved writers, Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher - the woman who elevated food writing to a literary art. In Among Friends M. F. K. Fisher begins her recollections in Albion, Michigan, but they soon lead her to Whittier, California, where her family moved in 1912, when she was four. The "Friends" of the title range from the hobos who could count on food at the family's back door to the businessmen who advertised in Father's paper-but above all they are the Quakers who were the prominent group in Whittier. Mary Frances Kennedy found them unusual friends indeed: in the more than forty years that she lived in Whittier she was never invited inside a Friend's house. Her portraits of her father, Rex-her mentor, himself the editor of the local newspaper-her mother, Edith, and the other members of her family are memorable and moving.

"The best prose writer in America."
--W.H. Auden

"She writes about food as others do about love, but rather better."
--Clifton Fadiman

"Poet of the appetites."
--John Updike

"A monument."
--Julia Child

"One of the world's finest food writers and, in the eyes of many, the grand dame of gastronomy."
--James Villas

"M.F.K. Fisher ... brings onstage a peach or a brace of quail and shows us history, cities, fantasies, memories, emotions."
--Patricia Storace, The New York Review of Books

"One of my great heroes."
--Jacques Pepin

"A delightful book. It is erudite and witty and experienced and young."
--The New York Times Book Review

In Serve It Forth, her first book, M. F. K. Fisher takes readers on an animated journey through culinary history, beginning with the honey-loving Greeks and the immoderate Romans. Fisher recalls a hunt for snails and truffles with one of the last adepts in that art and recounts how Catherine de Medici, lonely for home cooking, touched off a culinary revolution by bringing Italian chefs to France. Each essay makes clear the absolute firmness of Fisher's taste--contrarian and unique--and her skill at stirring memory and imagination into a potent brew.

In "Alphabet for Gourmets," M.F.K. Fisher arranges a selection of her essays in a whimsical way that reveals the breadth and depth of her passion. From A for (dining) alone to Z for Zakuski, "a Russian hors d'oeuvre," Fisher alights on both longtime obsessions and idiosyncratic digressions. As usual, she liberates her readers from caution and slavish adherence to culinary tradition-- and salts her writings with a healthy dose of humor.

Food makes philosophers of us all. Death does the same . . . but death comes only once . . . and choices about food come many times each day. In The Ethics of Food, Gregory E. Pence brings together a collection of voices who share the view that the ethics of genetically modified food is among the most pressing societal questions of our time. This comprehensive collection addresses a broad range of subjects, including the meaning of food, moral analyses of vegetarianism and starvation, the safety and environmental risks of genetically modified food, issues of global food politics and the food industry, and the relationships among food, evolution, and human history. Will genetically modified food feed the poor or destroy the environment? Is it a threat to our health? Is the assumed healthfulness of organic food a myth or a reality? The answers to these and other questions are engagingly pursued in this substantive collection, the first of its kind to address the broad range of philosophical, sociological, political, scientific, and technological issues surrounding the ethics of food.

Food makes philosophers of us all. Death does the same . . . but death comes only once . . . and choices about food come many times each day. In The Ethics of Food, Gregory E. Pence brings together a collection of voices who share the view that the ethics of genetically modified food is among the most pressing societal questions of our time. This comprehensive collection addresses a broad range of subjects, including the meaning of food, moral analyses of vegetarianism and starvation, the safety and environmental risks of genetically modified food, issues of global food politics and the food industry, and the relationships among food, evolution, and human history. Will genetically modified food feed the poor or destroy the environment? Is it a threat to our health? Is the assumed healthfulness of organic food a myth or a reality? The answers to these and other questions are engagingly pursued in this substantive collection, the first of its kind to address the broad range of philosophical, sociological, political, scientific, and technological issues surrounding the ethics of food.

"M.F.K Fisher's latest excursion into the art or science of gastronomy is more an anthology of the finest writing on the subject than strictly a text of her own composition . . . A royal feast, indeed!" -The New York Times Betty Fussell-winner of the James Beard Foundation's journalism award, and whose essays on food, travel, and the arts have appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Saveur, and Vogue-is the perfect writer to introduce M.F.K Fisher's Here Let Us Feast, first published in 1946. The author of Eat, Live, Love, Die has penned a brilliant introduction to this fabulous anthology of gastronomic writing, selected and with commentary from the inimitable M.F.K. Fisher. The celebrated author of such books as The Art of Eating, The Cooking of Provincial France, and With Bold Knife and Fork, Fisher knows how to prepare a feast of reading as no other. Excerpting descriptions of bountiful meals from classic works of British and American literature, Fisher weaves them into a profound discussion of feasting. She also traces gluttony through the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, and claims that the story of a nation's life is charted by its gastronomy. M.F.K. Fisher has arranged everything perfectly, and the result is a succession of unforgettable courses that will entice the most reluctant epicure.