December 16, 2013 Advent with SusieJ

M.F.K. Fisher: How to Cook a Wolf

M.F.K. Fisher published How to Cook a Wolf in 1942, "when wartime shortages were at there worst," according to the publishers' note to the 1951 edition. It is as much a treatise on the fall of Europe and civilization during the war as a cookbook of can-do spirit. It is my favorite of her books that I have read.

Fisher writes as much of spiritual nourishment as of physical. In a later note on a daily menu proposed by an anonymous group of dieticians: "It is a shocking example of gastronomical panic, and if it were heeded would soon reduce us to malnourished as well as spiritually weakened creatures, past much harm from bursting atoms." She turns to the lessons from British housewives, learned as their country endured years of the Blitz. The comfort of (a properly blacked-out) home outweighs most danger. Don't forget the bathrooms and to account for drinkable water.

The recipes try to preserve (not re-create) as much of the luxury and normalcy (its own luxury) from before the war. She devotes an entire chapter, "How to Drink to the Wolf," on drinking on a wartime budget: buying by the gallon or case, where to find good quality spirits, which spirits to fall back upon as a last resort as money grows ever tighter. Drinking is necessary for mental health: as a quick way of relaxing, and to preserving traditions from a less fearful time.

Wolf has a lesson that seems forgotten by many today: eating does not satisfy only a basic need, it is "part of the ancient religious solemnity of the Breaking of Bread, the Sharing of Salt." She wrote to comfort and advise an entire country facing privation. Joy, especially in food was as much a human necessity to Fisher as clean drinking water or sanitation. This is clearly something our society has forgotten, as we ask whether our fellow citizens really deserve to afford nourishing, tasty food and visits to the doctor. I think Fisher would say yes, and I do too.