Everything Old Is New Again

Are you tired yet, Gentle Reader, of all the bad news about the economy, of all the doom and gloom, of all the tired comparisons of today's woes to those of the Great Depression?

Yeah, me too. I'm finding it hard to listen to NPR in the morning as I'm getting three breakfasts rounded up because, well, every story seems to be about the economy. Granted, I'm up and rambling about the kitchen to catch all of Marketplace, which is a total downer these days, but I always hold out some hope that what follows from NPR will be a tad lighter, a bit brighter.

Anywho, with all this talk about economizing and cutting back and pinching pennies and making the most out of what a person can now afford, particularly when it comes to food, I thought it appropriate to find myself reading M.F.K. Fisher's How to Cook a Wolf, revised edition. I didn't by it at HPB solely for this reason; no, I bought it to check out why so many food writers--and other writers--rave about Fisher's work. But as I dug into it, I realized it's a book that's once again sort of relevant.

The book was originally published in 1942 (if I have to explain to you, Gentle Reader, what was going on in '42 and why a book about making the most out of very little in the kitchen was published at that time, then you should get thee to a library--or turn to the History Channel), and the author revised it in 1951. Some of those revisions, placed conveniently in brackets, Fisher uses to update recipes or her own personal philosophies, which do evolve with time and experience, and some of the revisions are just her way of pointing out how absurd or crazy she must have been at the time of the original writing.

What I found most striking is how she recognizes that certain common sense ideas for managing a food budget and making that budget stretch without suffering terribly had during her day disappeared because of changes in society. In his review from May 22, 1942, Orville Prescott of The New York Times calls Fisher's tips "intensely practical," but he also admits he's a "mere man...who has never become even a naturalized citizen of that foreign country, the kitchen, [for whom] a good deal of the ground covered in 'How to Cook a Wolf' is terra incognita.

Funny, those same common sense ideas have also disappeared in today's society, and many folks now are finding out the hard way how they can make a few dollars for groceries go a lot further when they apply themselves to the task.

The recipes included in the book are at times an eye-opening look at how our understanding of diet and nutrition have changed over the years. My my, how differently people cooked back then! So much fat! If a recipe doesn't call for butter, it seems to call for shortening, bacon grease (if one could live with one's conscience for not giving it all to the munitions efforts) or other animal fat. And I don't know about you, Gentle Reader, but encountering the phrase congealed fat literally turns my stomach. Just contemplating some of these recipes while lying in bed at night, I found myself getting queasy at times.

As for Fisher's writing, I can't say that I'm terribly impressed. Yeah, she's got a certain wit and humor about her that is at times self-deprecating (reminded me a bit of Erma Bombeck--but not that suburban and frazzled), and her turns of phrases flow fairly well. But I guess I was turned off by her, umm, pedigree--she's terribly worldly. I mean, Fisher lived and traveled in Europe quite a bit, and some of her experiences she writes about seem...almost elitist. If she were of the same age and experience writing in contemporary times, she'd probably be a bit of a foodie in the worst sense of the term--a bit of a snob. Then again, she probably wouldn't feel guilty in partaking of some low-brow, common "delights" either--but not too frequently.

Or at least that's the sense I got. I'll readily admit to my own prejudices against folks who think that Europe's the be-all end-all of all things culinary. Of course, in Fisher's time, it was. The foods of the East were not being heavily explored yet by the masses (WWII helped change that to a pretty large degree), and I think there was a certain prejudice against the foods of India and the Middle East because they were, in a way, the foods of a subjugated people. By jove, those English and those other Europeans had to come in, take over and show the savages and lowly ones how to eat properly.

If you want to amuse yourself and have some time (and patience), you might pick up a copy of How to Cook a Wolf. I don't regret reading it--entirely--but I am looking forward to moving on to other books.