M.F.K. FISHER Among the Pots & Pans
- Joan Reardon

Mary Frances in the kitchen (photo source: http://www.nytimes.com)

Like any self-respecting food lover (and writer),  I’m well aware that, hands down, M.F.K. Fisher (Mary Frances) is our greatest food writer and I’ve been pursuing the pleasurable endeavor of working my way through her entire catalog over the years.

As with my literature preferences, I find myself more often drawn to the classics, or, in this case, first flush of food writers who set the tone mid-20th century, like A.J. Liebling (read “Between Meals: An Appetite for Paris“) and Angelo Pellegrini (read “The Unprejudiced Palate”), though none have the impact on me that Fisher does.

She writes of food, travel, life but most importantly, she writes… drawing you in, enveloping you first and foremost with her person, heart, and poetic style.

There have been numerous books written about her over the years but one that landed on my desk was a 2008 UC Press edition of M.F.K. Fisher among the Pots & Pans by Joan Reardon.

The book is a straightforward biography summarizing key points in Mary Frances’ (I love that Reardon refers to her by the name she preferred to be called) life and complicated relationships, but through the intriguing slant of the many homes she lived in, particularly the kitchens she cooked in, from California to France.

Irish illustrator, Avram Dumitrescu, paints warm vignettes of her kitchens, imparting a friendly glow to the book, and complimenting photos of Mary Frances. Whether it be the cover illustration of her kitchen in Hemet, CA, or those in her St. Helena and Glen Ellen homes, one gets a glimpse into Mary Frances, the cook, though she was first and foremost a writer.

As her birthday just came and went on July 3rd (she would have been 102), it’s as good a time as any to read and reflect on one of our most gifted writers, who also happened to love food.

“Everday Drinking” – KINGSLEY AMIS

Kingsley Amis, the late, great British author (who was knighted in 1990, just a few years before his death) was more than an amateur imbiber. He describes himself as “having the reputation of being one of the great drinkers, if not one of the great drunks, of our time.” What stands out most, I think, is not only his impressive knowledge and opinionated perspective, but especially his rapier wit (yes, I said rapier!) His clever take on drink (wine, beer, spirits) is quite the entertaining read, my friends.

Everyday Drinking is a compilation of three out-of-print books, published between 1971 and 1984, each different in format. “How’s Your Glass?” (the third) was maybe the least interesting to me as a long set of quiz questions on various alcohols (with answers, of course). It’s a good way to learn facts, gleaning from Amis’ knowledge, but it gets tedious and is occasionally out-of-date.

The second, “Everyday Drinking“, is a collection of newspaper columns he wrote on the subject of drinking, randomly placed, including a description of “the atrocity of the Pina Colada” (he’s a Scotch man): “Just the thing for a little 95-IQ female… to suck at while her escort plunges grunting at the fruit machine. Mind you, he’ll be no ornament to his sex either, quite likely clutching a lager and lime – an exit application from the human race if ever there was one.” Harsh. Hilarious. True.

My favorite is the first book, “Kingsley Amis On Drink“, a lively collection of essays on subjects from the difficulty of serving proper wine to guests compared to the ease of serving beer (“First Thoughts on Wine“), to fully utilizing your wine merchant’s knowledge… note that if the merchant recommends you buy something that won’t be good to drink in many years time, Sir Amis tells you to “Hit your wine merchant across the mouth.”

His cures for a hangover, and the difference between P.H. (the actual physical hangover) and M.H. (the metaphysical, emotional hangover), are nothing short of hysterical. He summarizes it best addressing ‘young readers’: “They are mostly strangers to the M.H. But they will grin or jeer at their peril. Let them rest assured that, as they grow older, the M.H. will more and more come to fill the gap left by their progressively less severe P.H.”

This is the kind of ride you’re in for. Literature lovers (and wordsmiths) among you will find this their kind of drinking book, as I do. Less factual, more cheeky commentary and wordplay, though sadly, the fun is slightly marred by knowing Amis’ pleasurable drinking earlier in life turned into drunkenness and ill health at the end of his life.

His recommends for reading or music during a hangover are particularly clever: “…try any slow Miles Davis track. It will suggest to you that, however gloomy life may be, it cannot possibly be as gloomy as Davis makes it out to be”!?

The “Mean Sod’s Guide” is a delightful essay on how to “screw” your guests (offering things you don’t have that they won’t want, serving cheap liquor but telling stories of its great expense, et. al.), or of pitting husband and wife guests against each other so that as they leave your place, the husband will “disparage your hospitality”, the wife “saying you were very sweet and thoughtful and he [her husband] is just a frustrated drunk.”

I’ve learned new terms from Amis I’d love to employ in my vocabulary, like his uproarious term for the unwanted guest, a persnickety person of snobbery, the one you try to please, but never can: old Shagbag (not that I know anyone like this – wink, wink – but the term is so colorful, it begs to be used).

So, old Shagbag, stir your next cocktail (Amis is quite against shaking unless their is an egg, despite the cool James Bond factor) and enjoy an essay from this book as you imbibe.

Gumbo Tales: Finding My Place at the New Orleans Table – Sara Roahen

Certainly this was the ideal book to read prior to and on my recent trip to New Orleans. But on its own merit, Gumbo Tales is a tender, well-crafted memoir that caused my mouth to water and my heart to constrict with bittersweet longing. One of the better memoirs I’ve read in a while.

New Orleans fascinated me since I was girl as the one city of the South I really wanted to know, confirming it’s place in my heart as I recently scoured its old world streets and neighborhoods. It’s a place obviously scarred… permanently… but one with a heart beating so strongly, it cries out in its food, its streets, its people, and certainly its music. Ms. Roahen describes past-worshiping customs of a place that, thank God, continues to breathe life into traditions that have died elsewhere in the country. Roahen describes the variety of foods originated here, the region’s tenacious embrace of all things hearty (in true Southern fashion), such as the Po Boy, Turducken, food “Stuffed, Smothered, Z’Herbes” (the title of one chapter), as well as the right placement of classic cocktails at the top of worthy drinking, the city’s own Sazerac among the most revered.

reading material

Gumbo Tales highlights treasures of New Orleans’ rich culinary history as themes for each chapter, with stories of Roahen’s fast and fierce fall into love with a city she isn’t native to. Each chapter stands alone, valuable on its own merit, but the collection goes beyond the already commendable joys of food and traditions to the depths of loss in a place profoundly marred by nature’s (and human injustice’s) havoc. She weaves into each food theme reflections we all share in our humanity on death, life, the past and future. Whether you have any attachment to this Queen of Southern cities or not, it’s just plain good story-telling… and food writing.

Many of her anecdotes stick with me. “Red Beans and Rice” elevates her friend, Pableaux, to level of hero with his communal, inclusive Red Bean Monday nights, a tradition the likes of which I’d love to simulate myself. I relate to her self-analysis as a lightweight who’s crazy about cocktails, particularly “brown liquor”, who can “stretch one and a half [drinks] over the course of a… meal”. Perhaps my favorite tale is “Sno-Balls”, about New Orlean’s Summer-soother, sno-balls (don’t call ‘em sno-cones!), and the legendary Hansen’s where some of the best are made over the last century. Sadly, though I ate down the street at fabulous Dick & Jenny’s and spent a happy hour in the used bookshop next door, Hansen’s wasn’t open when I was just there. I’ll have to save my ultimate sno-ball experience for a visit in hotter seasons. Ernest and Mary Hansen’s granddaughter, Ashley, who took over their business, encapsulates the bittersweet nostalgia and tenacious spirit of New Orleanians (including many I talked to) when she says why she hasn’t moved away or on to other things, “There are too many benefits, there are too many memories… too many smells and scents that I couldn’t live without.”