A Stew or a Story by M. F. K. Fisher

Published in Gastronomica (Winter 2008) p. 109

A Stew or a Story: An Assortment of Short Works by M.F.K. Fisher

Gathered and Introduced by Joan Reardon

Emeryville, CA: Shoemaker and Hoard, 2006

xvii + 364 pp. $28 (hardcover)

With an unwavering commitment to creating as many M. F. K. Fisher fans as humanly possible, I was delighted to hear that one more potential testament to her genius had been published. In A Stew or a Story, Joan Reardon, who wrote Fisher’s long overdue, painstakingly researched, and poignant biography, has gathered an assortment of articles from the numerous magazines that Fisher wrote for during her career. The first section includes three works of fiction, beginning with “Legend of Love,” which revolves around a disturbing series of events at an all-girls’ school. I dove into the story with abandon, but soon began to wince. Disappointingly, the piece begins with the same awkwardness that haunts Fisher’s full-length novel Now, Not Now. Butafter teetering for several pages, the story rights itself to crystallize two of the key themes that glimmer through Fisher’s most popular memoirs--the delicate cadence of intimacy and the violence of grief.

As an appetizer--and to pique the interest of those less familiar with Fisher’s work--I’d suggest beginning with the handful of gems found in the fourth section of the anthology, “Places and People.” In particular, the article “The Fabled Days of Diamond Jim” vividly depicts the decadence of a bygone era while simultaneously showcasing the ageless quality of Fisher’s best prose. After Jim Brady’s death in 1917, “[a]ll Broadway looked upon him in his twinkling coffin…. The vulgarity, the crass lustiness of all young, growing, pushing America lay with Diamond Jim in his narrow bed. Never again would a Yankee eat as much, as publicly. Never again would a man love life to the tune of such a large brass band” (p. 324).

Two other standouts include “Napa and Sonoma: the Best of Both Worlds” and “The Art of Eating: California Style,” both of which distill the reasons why Fisher passed the majority of her life on the West Coast. They likewise capture Fisher’s revolutionary spirit as a gastronome and as a writer. She digested the best of California and used it to nourish exquisitely crafted prose. The hills of Napa Valley “are tender green for a few short weeks in Spring, but mostly keep the tawny color of a healthy lioness, with her same tense voluptuous curves” (p. 254). 

 Fisher’s love affair with France shines through in “All the Foods and Wines Were There.” Describing the evening meals served at Dijon’s annual Gastronomical Fair, Fisher reflects: “The meals were so well prepared of the freshest, purest edibles, and so deftly served; the wines that flowed gently through each course were so rightly proud; perhaps above all everything was savored at such a perfect pace that even ambassadors could not complain…and as for princes and other dignitaries, they became almost themselves” (p. 292).

As for the recipes found throughout A Stew or a Story, they reflect the extremes of Fisher’s culinary leanings, which range from a profound fondness for truffles and rich cream sauces to a heavy reliance on tinned mushrooms and fruits, an odd penchant for a woman who grew up savoring fresh fruits and vegetables plucked straight from their natural source. In her childhood memoir Among Friends, for example, Fisher recalls how she and her siblings would roam their California neighborhood eating

almost anything that we could put in our mouths without being burned or stung, and [swallowing] everything that our bodies would not reject. It was a good education for my palate. … [W]e had beautiful orchard and citrus fruits, and artichokes, and asparagus and every kind of vegetable that would grow above the ground….Peaches, apricots, plums, mirabelles, prunes, the guavas and dates, strange little things called roselles.[i]

So why then, with such fresh flavors imprinted on her palate, do so many of Fisher’s recipes in A Stew or a Story call for tinned ingredients? Perhaps many of the magazine subscribers whom her regular columns reached did not have access to fresh; those reading her many columns published during World War II certainly did not.  But, then again, Fisher may also have been weary of churning out the countless articles she wrote to pay the bills; her journals and letters often bemoan a tight budget and an ongoing struggle to meet article deadlines. As a result, among the many gems contained in A Stew or a Story, lie lackluster pieces. An inordinate amount of these appear in the section “Food, Wine and Other Potables.” Reading it in one sitting, I could feel Fisher’s exhaustion. With such weary and wearying articles extracted, the book’s length could easily have been cut by a third.

Although the collection would have benefited from much firmer culling, reading those gems in A Stew or a Story, nevertheless, left me hungering for a contemporary gastronomer to fill the void that’s been left since Fisher’s death in 1992. Many have taken up the genre that she pioneered in the 1940s--namely, a form of culinary memoir that celebrates female appetite. But, to my mind, none can match Fisher’s best food writing, which illuminates gastronomy as a means of self-construction as well as a powerful source of wisdom and imagination.

NOTES

[i] M. F. K. Fisher. Among Friends (New York: North Point Press, 1998), 246-247.