Allreaders.com

Message Board

M.F.K. Fisher Message Board
Talk about the novels, new and used books that Fisher has written!

Author Fisher's Book Reviews

A Considerable Town
Like her essay portraits of Dijon and Aix, in this 1978 book Fisher collected impressions and anecdotes of Marseille. There is a little ancient history, nods to the rough seaport town's trade in drugs and prostitution, moments from throughout Fisher's acquaintance with Marseille's avenues, cafes, hotels, and walkways from her first visit as a young bride in 1929 to her last in 1976. There are no outstanding stories in this one (well, the tale of a last s...
An Alphabet for Gourmets
In a somewhat peripatetic collection dating from 1949, Fisher assigns one letter-subject to each chapter ("A is for dining Alone" ... "G is for Gluttony" ... "W is for Wanton") as a method of pleasantly passing the time with assorted anecdotes and recipes. This is not a high-falutin' selection -- included are such delicacies as Fried Egg Sandwiches and Milk Toast -- though there are some interesting remarks on romancing with food and the nature of bachel...
As They Were
In this wide-ranging 1982 collection, Fisher moves from the xenophobia of her neighbors in First World War Whittier, California, to snowstorms in France and hurricanes in Long Island in the 1970s. "I Was Really Very Hungry" details her hilarious assault with multiple meal course, by a gourmet chef and waitress in a tiny rural Burgundian restaurant. "At Sea" provides several aspects and experiences of travel by ocean liner. There are word portraits of Swi...
Consider the Oyster
Fisher's second book, dated 1941, is slim and specific: It's about oysters. How they live, where they're found, but mostly how many different ways one may eat them. There are lots of recipes (even one on how to make a pearl!), and a few anecdotes relating to oysters' reputation as aphrodisiacs, supposed source of poison death, etc. All related with Fisher's usual pleasantly witty and sophisticated voice, but one of her slighter efforts. Recommended mainl...

Fisher booklist

How to Cook a Wolf
The title refers to the times when "the wolf is at the door." Fisher provides hints -- mostly but not exclusively culinary -- about how to make do, and even flourish, in lean times. (The book was published in the early years of World War II, during food and fuel shortages, and rationing.) There are plenty of recipes, from the absurd ("Sludge") to the sublime (Fruit aux Sept Liqueurs), all presented in Fisher's light-hearted, conversational style. Chapter...
Last House: Reflections, Dreams, and Observations, 1943-1991
This collection consists of essays, journal excerpts, and an occasional letter from the final 47 years of Fisher's life. Most of it she spent in Southern California, though some of the pieces hearken back to her youth. There are rather tiresome references to unprofessional treatment at the hands of journalists, and the vicissitudes of growing old (we all need to know about this, but none of us enjoys reading about it), but there are also occasional start...
Long Ago in France: the Years in Dijon
This memoir of the author's early adulthood was written very late in her life: published in 1991 when Fisher was in her 80s, about life as the 21-year-old, newly-married wife of Alfred Fisher, who was working on his doctorate in Dijon between 1929 and 1931. The book provides a walking tour of the city as well as portraits of the lovable eccentrics she knew there. Roughly a quarter of the stories are recycled from _Serve It Forth_, _The Gastronomical Me_,...
Map of Another Town
Fisher provides a portrait of one of the significant towns of her life, Aix-en-Provence, where she lived at various times in the 1950s, and visited from the 1920s through the 1970s. Sometimes the essays read like a guide book, with discussions of hotels, cafes, and the famed fountains of Aix, but whenever she turns to people they are inevitably absorbing: the working-class couple whose fortunes and fights over time can be glimpsed through a nearby window...
Serve It Forth
This book, Fisher's first, appeared in 1937. It features her light touch, with essays about various aspects of the dining experience -- from dining alone and "vegetable snobbery" to preparation of escargots -- and several wonderful set-pieces. Yes, there are some recipes, and also a casual structure that describes dining practices through the centuries, from ancient Greece and Rome to the present. One story, "The Standing and the Waiting," is simply the ...
Sister Age
In many but not all of the stories in this 1984 collection, Fisher addresses aging and death. Some are clearly autobiographical -- a lovely escape with her young daughters to Morro Bay, where a crusty fisherman charms them all and gentle proposes marriage; another trip with her daughters on an Atlantic cruise ship, at the conclusion of which an elderly female passenger dies; a startling but gentle encounter with an itinerant rug seller which might be reg...

M.F.K. Fisher list of books

Stay Me, Oh Comfort Me
This book consists of journals, stories, and a few letters of Fisher's dating from 1933-41, when she was 25-33. The effects of the Depression are felt, stress and rancor grow in her own family, she tries being a faculty wife (unsuccessfully), for a short time she and husband Al try to live together with newly divorced friend and future husband Dillwyn Parrish on the farm in Switzerland, she divorces Al Fisher and marries Dillwyn, and cares for him a few ...
The Boss Dog
In 1991, 54 years after the publication of her lovely first book, _Serve It Forth_, Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher published this light bonbon about an American mother and her two daughters (ages 8 and 11), and their year in the French town of Aix-en-Provence. (The time period is early 1950s.) The title character weaves through the narrative while the humans watch and speculate on his motives and activities, and the locals interact with all four and one ano...
The Gastronomical Me
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 st...
To Begin Again
The subtitle is "Stories and Memoirs, 1908-1929." Fisher describes incidents and personalities from her first 21 years, mostly in childhood and early teens. There are portraits of Laguna, San Francisco, and other parts of Southern California just after the turn of the century, odd friends and housekeepers/cooks, the casual schoolyard cruelties of young girls, imaginary childhood friends, inevitable memories of lovely meals and dishes, the odd intrusions ...