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tildahlia's review against another edition
5.0
Just a delightful book. Beautiful descriptions of food, hospitality and pleasure in company alongside the vicissitudes of Fisher’s fascinating life. I particularly loved the descriptions of hosting dinner parties in the 1930s, with all the attendant challenges that modern kitchens have overcome. A good reminder that some beautiful produce, good company and a vibrant atmosphere is all you need to have a fantastic time. An impeccable holiday read!
brnycx's review against another edition
5.0
"I still think that one of the pleasantest of all emotions is to know that I, I with my brain and my hands, have nourished my beloved few, that I have concocted a stew or a story, a rarity or a plain dish, to sustain them truly against the hungers of the world."
Food writing was an entire genre of the craft that, until reading Ruby Tandoh's excellent Eat Up! this year, I had totally overlooked. So I'm trying to make up for lost time! I started with reading Elizabeth David's An Omelette and a Glass of Wine which tbh I found a bit stuffy and dull.
The Gastronomical Me is totally different from that. Really it's M.F.K. Fisher's autobiography, just with food as one of its central focuses - and I know if I was writing mine, I'd do the same. One of the most wonderful things about food is that years later you can eat a certain meal or taste a certain flavour, and BAM just like that you're transported to a significant moment in your life. You really get a sense of that here as Fisher uses food to paint vignettes of formative moments in her life - the ride back as a child with her father and crates of apricots, her austere Victorian grandmother making strawberry jam, that last poignant meals she shared with her husband in a pre-war Europe tearing itself apart.
Food writing was an entire genre of the craft that, until reading Ruby Tandoh's excellent Eat Up! this year, I had totally overlooked. So I'm trying to make up for lost time! I started with reading Elizabeth David's An Omelette and a Glass of Wine which tbh I found a bit stuffy and dull.
The Gastronomical Me is totally different from that. Really it's M.F.K. Fisher's autobiography, just with food as one of its central focuses - and I know if I was writing mine, I'd do the same. One of the most wonderful things about food is that years later you can eat a certain meal or taste a certain flavour, and BAM just like that you're transported to a significant moment in your life. You really get a sense of that here as Fisher uses food to paint vignettes of formative moments in her life - the ride back as a child with her father and crates of apricots, her austere Victorian grandmother making strawberry jam, that last poignant meals she shared with her husband in a pre-war Europe tearing itself apart.
arachan's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
I was gifted How To Cook A Wolf by a friend a couple of years ago and this is the second Fisher book that I've read. A collection of essays scattered across the 1920s-1930s that talk about food and how Fisher grew from a child tasting jam to a skilled and thoughtful cook in her own kitchen. It was a surprisingly emotional book and the story of Juanita brought tears to my eyes. There's a lot of loss in this book. Loss of youth, loss of innocence, loss of loved ones but it's told with an unquenchable appetite for life and a sharp eye for detail. Absolutely worth reading again and again.
hannahmayreads's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
I am almost ashamed that I had never heard of Fisher until, drawn in by the cover, I picked this up on a recent bookstore excursion. A wonderful writer and an even better eater it seems, her descriptions of food, people and places vividly leap off the page.
A collection of memories, rather than an all-encompassing memoir, this is a tantalising glimpse into the personal world of M.F.K. Fisher at varying stages of her life - naive schoolgirl, young bride, deeply in love, divorcee and grieving widow. This book is a wonderful example of how food informs our memories, and how it is not always the significant meals that leave the greatest mark on our gastronomical selves.
A collection of memories, rather than an all-encompassing memoir, this is a tantalising glimpse into the personal world of M.F.K. Fisher at varying stages of her life - naive schoolgirl, young bride, deeply in love, divorcee and grieving widow. This book is a wonderful example of how food informs our memories, and how it is not always the significant meals that leave the greatest mark on our gastronomical selves.