In this precisely titled 1943 tome, Fisher offers a sort of culinary autobiography in a series of essays about memorable meals and trips. It consists of more flowing narrative and fewer recipes than her previous three books, and though one encounters the usual wit, warmth, and sophistication, there are also sudden jolts of cold reality: the odd family cook who cut her mother up with a French knife; the sadistic German student who tortured his sexually starved Czech girlfriend in Dijon, 1930; the political prisoner handcuffed between two fascist policemen on a 1939 Italian train, whose suicide by smashing a window and razoring his neck on the broken glass served as a metaphor for the gathering clouds all over Fisher's beloved Europe; and the mystery of the sweet mariachi singer in Mexico who followed her brother David everywhere. A rich and rewarding book.
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The review of this Book prepared by David Loftus
