The Gastronomical Me by MFK Fisher
A review of MFK Fisher’s memoir The Gastronomical Me.
“First we eat, then we do everything else.”
The Gastronomical Me by MFK Fisher (1948). Published in 1989 by North Point Press.
As seen in my previous review of Laurie Colwin’s Home Cooking, I find myself deep in a hole of the food world and I seem to be unable to escape. I cook every day for my family, and then I read about cooking, and then I watch television about cooking. I literally can’t escape and am even debating the concept of culinary school. Do I want to work in a kitchen? Probably not, I want to be my own boss, and I like being all over the place menu-wise.
In my pursuit of trying to find more food writing, this was the very first book that was recommended to me. Again, this was all sparked by Michelle Zauner’s novel Crying in H Mart, and immediately after this book by MFK Fisher was recommended, Zauner then also mentioned it as a must-read memoir in food writing, one that she took inspiration from. I knew immediately I had to get my hands on it and looked for the cheapest used copy I could get my hands on. In the bathtub, I took it in with me and plowed through eighty pages in about an hour.
At the end of the day, I see why this is a must-read, but let’s reflect on the components on why it is.
Book Blurb
If one imagines M.F.K. Fisher's life as a large colorful painting, it is here, in The Gastronomical Me, that one sees the first lines and sketches upon which that life was based. In what is the most intimate of her five volumes of her "Art of Eating" series, the reader witnesses the beginnings of a writer who, with food as her metaphor, writes of the myriad hungers and satisfactions of the heart.
Content / Writing
I don’t think I can dig deep into this without acknowledging who MFK Fisher was exactly. She was a prolific writer, producing over twenty books during her lifetime, and often delved into the topic of food even if she didn’t intend to do so originally. She began writing poetry by the time she was five years old, setting the scene for the career that was to come. It wasn’t until she sailed to Dijon, France, which is the basis of this book, with her new husband did a new appreciation for food began to cross her mind.
Unlike the Laurie Colwin book, this does not include recipes. This is what I would’ve wanted the Laurie Colwin book to be, as this memoir is straight up a memoir that uses food to propel the story and become a necessary prop to talk about. We see culture, devotion, and philosophy in the way that Fisher describes food, as well as the ritual of social interactions based around food.
The essays are quite loosely connected; they’re pretty much in chronological order based on the time period she wrote them in, starting in her childhood, then the late 1910s/early 1920s, and we follow her from the end of her college days to her new life in France. The book ends in the 1940s, after she is divorced. There’s definitely gaps in the memoir that we aren’t fed, such as why her marriage suddenly falls apart and we see them getting divorced after being madly in love, but besides that I think the descriptions of the food and the interactions based around eating are what makes this memoir sing.
Fisher’s writing is so smooth. Like, I was so jealous of it and wondered how she got her typewriter to do this. I want to replicate how she writes, for real. Outside of her descriptions of food I found myself Googling things because she mentions a lot of French dishes and I, being someone who cooks primarily South Asian/East Asian/Central Asian food, had to Google quite a bit. Have some new recipes bookmarked, might have to reduce the amount of butter being used though!
Overall Thoughts
Get it for the food writing and study it for that. There’s gaps in the narrative that should probably be filled, but it works for Fisher because we’re not completely prying into her private life. People are reading for her thoughts about food, and, at the end of the day, it’s probably a bit nosy to want to pry deeper. It’s just a bit jarring when she talks about how madly in love they are and then, in the next essay, they’re amicably getting divorced. Oh well, life happens and this is an example of that. But the food writing! Truly spectacular.
