LTH bookgroup: Joan Reardon on M.F.K. Fisher

Joan Reardon will be at a Chicago Foodways roundtable at Kendall College on May 12th. I gather she's talking about newest book about M.F.K. Fisher, Poet of the Appetites: The Lives and Loves of M.F.K. Fisher. We had decided, however, that we were instead going to read one of her earlier books, M.F.K. Fisher, Julia Child, and Alice Waters: Celebrating the Pleasures of the Table.

Here's the problem. The Fisher/Child/Waters book is out of print. You can buy used copies on-line, but most run $25 to $66. There are some, but not abundant, library copies out there--four in the suburban library system catalog for example. Her newer book, of course, is much more widely, and cheaply, available.

Please vote whether to stick with the three chefs, or pick the more readily available title.

HI,

I was just checking Highland Park library's on-line catalog, they have a new book by Joan Reardon:

A stew or a story : an assortment of short works by M.F.K. Fisher / gathered and introduced by Joan Reardon. Published in 2006

Poet of the appetites : the lives and loves of M.F.K. Fisher / Joan Reardon. Published in 2004.

Alternatively, Joan Reardon is considered the expert on MFK Fisher. Why not simply read an MFK Fisher book? Such as:

The art of eating [by] M. F. K. Fisher. With an introd. by Clifton Fadiman and an appreciation by James A. Beard. Published 1971.

This book may be out of publication, though it could probably be obtain via interlibrary loan.

At last weeks Roundtable meeting, I advised on this upcoming talk on MFK Fisher. I was pleased and a bit surprised at the happy murmur feedback on this topic. For years in the happy isolation I existed in before meeting people here or via Culinary Historians, I was the only person who read MFK Fisher's books. Two years ago, there was a play based on MFK Fisher, which our MrBarolo was of the presenters. I was pleasantly surprised to find a whole room filled with people who were fans as well.

Whatever book is chosen, I am so looking forward to finding others who read MFK Fisher as well.

Best regards,

Cathy,

I have read and reread MFK Fisher for years. Her ability to evoke taste memories is, in my opinion, unparalleled. I always assumed she had a huge following - if not, I'm glad that new publications are provoking a new interest in her writings.

For book reading purposes, any of the books lised would be a good choice.

Jyoti

Given how large "The Art of Eating" is (five books in one edition) I think it might be better off to pick one of them if we're going to read MFKF in primary source. I tapered off about halfway through "The Gastronomical Me" and haven't yet read "An Alphabet of Gourmets" -- I loved the first three, and am sure I'll enjoy the others, but to me, reading all five at once just because they are between one set of covers was too much.

If we decide to read "Consider the Oyster," maybe we can start now working on getting Mark Mavrantonis to cater the face-to-face at the end! After all, he may need a gig.

Or we could read "How to Cook a Wolf" and consider the differences of life during wartime.

But my fascination with Ms. Fisher is a lot to do with imagining how someone found her way to a life like that in the time she did. The autobiographical writings are interesting in different ways than those more thematic ones. I don't think I can pick, but I think we'll be more likely to have collective focus if we don't just say "read the whole book."

The books are available separately, although unless they have bonus material or something, it looks like the price of the omnibus is less than the price of any two of component books. (And less if you get it remaindered; I got my copy of Art of Eating for eight bucks... but it appears from Amazon that there is a current edition in print.)

It's so nice that Cathy2 remembers the MFK play at the Cultural Center. Just for the record, it was Mrs. Barolo (aka Kelly Nespor) who created the script for Live Bait Theater, and who directed the reading of it that Cathy2 attended.
And we learned from the original staging at Live Bait, that she does indeed have quite an intensely devoted following.

I vote for the Fisher/Child/Waters book, but my second choice, if people are concerned about obtaining copies, is A Stew or a Story. I want to read some secondary sources on Fisher.

All right, with that overwhelming vote, we have a decision. Here's your assignment.

1) Read any book by Joan Reardon about MFK Fisher. The possibilities include Poet of the Appetite: The Lives and Loves of M.F.K. Fisher

or M.F.K. Fisher, Julia Child, and Alice Waters: Celebrating the Pleasures of the Table

2) Discuss in this topic--or sound off generally about M.F.K. Fisher, or polish sausage, or whatever in our famously wandering manner

3) Consider joining us to hear Joan Reardon at the Chicago Foodways Roundtable on May 12th.

Ready, Set, Read!

Can we start discussing the Reardon-Fisher reading?

I'm about 2/3 of the way through the Fisher/Child/Waters book, just started the section on Waters, and I'm a little disappointed by the book's structure. I thought Chapter 1, "La Belle France," was basically a preview of how Reardon would interweave the stories of Fisher, Child and Waters throughout the book. The France-California motif was a beautiful (if not really obvious) starting point. Having completed the Fisher chapters and then reading the section on Child, I was really disappointed that Reardon mentions Fisher in the Child section as if she didn't just spend the first third of the book discussing her. In other words, Reardon quotes MFK in the Child section as though the former were a stranger (for example on p. 186). I guess I wish Reardon spent more time offering explicit interpretation of the ways the efforts of these women were related (or not), rather than just using passing quotes to demonstrate that these women interacted and communicated with each other. I feel like I'm reading three distinct bios--Fisher, Child, Waters--that just happen to be bound in the same volume.

All of this said, after reading the JC section, I am now determined to watch as many Julia Child DVDs as I can get my hands on. I vaguely remember seeing the series with Child and guest chefs growing up, but other than that, most of my JC knowledge is limited to the NYT obituary and some articles about [the politics behind] the Schlesinger-Radcliffe collection.

I'm looking forward to starting Poet of the Appetites fairly soon. Anybody else have thoughts yet on the Reardon reading?

I'm on page 154 (of 450!) in Poet of the Appetites and I have to say I'm lukewarm about it at best. There are some good stories in it, but too much of it seems really extraneous. I sure it's hard, once you've spent months or years reading letters and interviewing people, not to put in everything you know. But I really don't need a description of the remodeling plans for an house she and her first husband didn't rent in California, or the plot line of a short story she wrote in high school. It's almost as though it's written for a specialized audience of M.F.K Fisher family and devotees, who have all her books pretty well memorized and are eager for the details that might add some context to what they already know.

On the other hand, the parts about Fisher's time in France zip by quite pleasantly, and I'm now caught up enough to have brought the book on the L with me this morning. So I'm not giving up.

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quote="happy_stomach"]Can we start discussing the Reardon-Fisher reading?

I'm about 2/3 of the way through the Fisher/Child/Waters book, just started the section on Waters, and I'm a little disappointed by the book's structure. I thought Chapter 1, "La Belle France," was basically a preview of how Reardon would interweave the stories of Fisher, Child and Waters throughout the book. "

I'm with you, Happy. I feel like it's 3 distinct bios as well...although, there are quite a few things that have struck me, such as pg 57, where Reardon is talking about Auden who said that "women who developed a passion for cooking...their unconscious masculine side, is stronger than normal..." I wish that Reardon would have talked about this more. I know it turns into meta-discussion, but isn't that what all this cross referencing is supposed to be about?

I also thought it was interesting that Fisher admitted "not a single recipe has ever sprung virgin from my brain." Again, I wish this was discussed more in terms of what she did cook, and why, and how. Entertaining is referred to pretty often, but not in enough detail for me.

I love how in 1968 Nora Ephron said that "the food world is smaller [than theater and music]; much more self-involved; people in the food world are riding the crest of a trend that started less than 20 years ago..." What would she think now??

Some of the quotes of Fisher's and Child's letters are very sweet. When talking to Child about her surging popularity and how men were starting to pay attention to her, she says "[Wives] do not mind losing their husbands to you because they are already in your thrall, themselves." Indeed, I am in Julia's thrall every time I watch an old episode on DVD, and wish that I could be in that kitchen alongside her quite desperately!

Other thoughts?

Having completed Poets of the Appetites, I have to amend my review to say it gets much better once we get to the adult Fisher, cooking, writing, and traveling, often with children in tow. It's far from a flattering portrait, but it does convey a good sense of an interesting and complex, if more than a little self-absorbed, woman.

I don't think I'm going to make it through Poets before the Reardon talk this Saturday given that I'm only about 20 pages in. However, I suspected some factual errors in Pleasures of the Table, and I think some of them were actually corrected in Poets. The first one I caught was the location of the Bishop's School, which Fisher attended. Reardon makes very clear at the beginning of Poets that her subject never "spoiled" a story by sticking to the truth. However, I don't think Fisher's propensity for truth-stretching sufficiently explains the mistakes in Pleasures, which struck me as pretty poorly edited, nothing on a Frey-Random House scale, but a little annoying nonetheless.