M. F. K. Fisher – författare

M.F.K. Fisher's personal, intimate culinary essays are well-loved American classics, combining recipes with her anecdotes, reminiscences, cultural observations and passionate storytelling. Auden, Fisher saw eating as inextricably bound up with living well. Whether reflecting on an epic lunch served by a fanatical waitress, the life-giving properties of wine, quails whose glorious smell 'would rouse Lazarus' or how the love of food can save a marriage, each piece is a perfectly-crafted work of art.

Defines the vital relationship between food and culture.

This collection of interviews captures the conversation of one of the most prominent prose writers in the Unites States. About her the Chicago Sun-Times says, ""She is to literary prose what Sir Laurence Olivier is to acting or Willie Mays is to baseball.""These interviews reveal her uncompromising and frequently contradictory attitudes toward the luxuries and necessities of gastronomy, the idea that sensual appreciation, in all aspects of life, is or should be necessary. In her conversations m. F. K. Fisher often returns to the complexities of her life. Other recurring subjects in these interviews include the nature of aging, the differences between men and women, and her own relationship to her work, which she describes with precision and a selective memory.These pieces give us a view of M. F. K. Fisher in motion--speaking and changing her mind at will, with fierce wit, unable to tolerate simplistic strategies of thinking and living.

An undiscovered novel by an iconic American food writer – the publication of this enchanting portrait of 1930s bohemian life will be a major literary event''I sank into The Theoretical Foot like a fat strawberry into whipped cream ... Intimate and moral, funny and wise, there is something incantatory about her style ... She is not just a great food writer. She is a great writer, full stop'' Rachel Cooke, ObserverSusan Harper and Joe Kelly, in love and hitchhiking through Europe, never want this perfect, passionate summer to end. It is the late 1930s, and society frowns on the slack morals of couples living in sin. But these tiresome strictures are swept away when they arrive at La Prairie, the elegant haven on Lake Geneva where Joe''s enigmatic friend Sara and her lover Tim preside – where judgement is suspended and time ebbs deliciously away.Surrounded by orchards heavy with plums and meadows splashed with poppies, lunches are long, youth is languorous and wine flows. As morning gives way to afternoon and sunset brings the evening''s festivities, the unseen tensions and desires of the group are revealed, the fleeting yearnings and long-held resentments.A long lost gem by one of the twentieth century''s most iconic food writers, this previously unpublished novel illuminates moral attitudes in the 1930s and shows glimpses of a refugee-filled Europe blighted by the rise of Fascism and the menace of another war. Enchanting, light, yet suffused with the darkness of what is to come, The Theoretical Foot is a witty and bold portrait of a bohemian life under threat.

An undiscovered novel by an iconic American food writer – the publication of this enchanting portrait of 1930s bohemian life will be a major literary event'I sank into The Theoretical Foot like a fat strawberry into whipped cream ... Intimate and moral, funny and wise, there is something incantatory about her style ... She is not just a great food writer. She is a great writer, full stop' Rachel Cooke, ObserverSusan and Joe never want this perfect summer to end. It is the 1930s, and society frowns on the slack morals of couples living in sin – but judgement is suspended at the haven on Lake Geneva where Joe’s friend Sara and her lover Tim preside. Here, surrounded by orchards heavy with plums, they are thrust into an exotic milieu of artistic Americans. As morning gives way to afternoon and sunset brings the evening’s festivities, the unseen tensions and desires of the group are revealed.

The book highlights her strong sense of place - Fisher’s Celtic eye for detail - with a comparison of Aix-en-Provence, a university town, the site of an international music festival and the former capital of Provence, and Marseille, the port town. Fisher’s description of the sights and smells belonging to an Aix bakery shop window is her Platonic ideal of a bakery shop to be found anywhere in France, for example, with its “delicately layered” scents of “fresh eggs, fresh sweet butter, grated butter, vanilla beans, old kirsch and newly ground almonds.” Then, there is her portrayal of the sounds of Aix’s fountains mixed with the music of Mozart during the town’s festival, leaving her bedazzled. She would return again and again to stroll the narrow streets of Aix with two young daughters who “seemed to grow like water-flowers under the greening buds of the plane trees.” It is the quality of Fisher’s writing that inspired photographer Aileen Ah-Tye to look for her Provence. In a letter to Fisher, Aileen would report back from Marseille: “The eels and the prickly rascasse were exotique to my San Francisco eyes, the smells as pungent as you can get, and . . . miracle of all miracles . . . the men and women on the docks were exactly as you described them.” Thus, began a collaboration that illustrates Fisher’s passion for life and all its sensual pleasures that nourish the soul.