How to Cook a Wolf

June 15, 2018

Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.

“A wise man always eats well.” – Chinese proverb

MFK Fisher (a friend and contemporary of Julia Child) first published How to Cook a Wolf in 1942 in the midst of World War II. The book deals with domestic stresses during war time, especially those related to food rations. The essays deal with economic purchasing and energy savings, but also how to enjoy what little you have. Throughout the book, she talks about wisdom and joy and satisfaction. Each chapter is sprinkled with nostalgia, stories and recipes. The fascinating portion of this book, for me, is the way in which she writes about the interaction of food with taste, culture, habit, and perhaps, even love. Since times of war make it impossible to adhere to many of the structures of peace time, it is easy to abandon decency. For Fisher, the temptation to give up is strong, something she refers to as the “wolf” at the door. Instead of giving into depression, despair and frustration, she asks that we cast aside the wolf by staring him straight in the eye and enjoy what we have. Food, she claims, is one of our greatest traditions and that simple fact should never be forgotten. In fact, she recalls reading recipes as if they were pieces of classical literature or oral traditions handed down with pride and artifice.

What follows are a number of quotes from Fisher’s book on the ways in which foods make us feel good, whole, satisfied or comforted. The book comes at a time following great sacrifice and sadness as a whole country. Fisher claims that even in times of war, “since we must eat to live, we might as well do it with both grace and gusto.” In other words, whether on a tight budget, a dietary constraint or simply making a family meal, choose the foods wisely and enjoy it well. She would ask that we take pride in what and how we eat. This simple action enables us to maintain a piece of humanity, even in times that cause such great divides.

She writes:

“Close your eyes to the headlines and your ears to the sirens and the threatenings of high explosives, and read instead the sweet nostalgic measures of these recipes, impossible yet fond.”

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“Yes, it is crazy, to sit savoring such impossibilities, while headlines yell at you and the wolf whuffs through the keyhole. Yet now and then it cannot harm you, thus to enjoy a short respite from reality. And if by chance you can indeed find some anchovies, or a thick slice of rare beef and some brandy, or a bowl of pink curled shrimps, you are doubly blessed, to possess in this troubled life both the capacity and the wherewithal to forget it for a time.”

—–

“Use as many fresh things as you can, always, and then trust to luck and your blackout cupboard and what you have decided, inside yourself, about the dignity of man.”

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She quotes Brillat-Savarin, who wrote, “The destiny of nations depends upon what and how they eat”.

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Fisher elaborates on Brillat-Savarin’s sentiment with an anecdote about Walter Scott. She writes:

“Once when young Walter Scott, who later wrote so many exciting books, was exceptionally hungry and said happily, ‘Oh, what a fine soup! Is it not a fine soup, dear Papa?,’ his father immediately poured a pint of cold water into what was already a pretty thin broth, if the usual family menu was any sample. Mr. Scott did it, he said, to drown the devil.

“For too many nice ordinary little Americans the devil has been drowned, so that all their lives afterwards they what is set before them, without thought, without comment, and, worst of all, without interest. The result is that our cuisine is often expensively repetitive: we eat what and how and when our parents ate, without thought of natural hungers.

“It is not enough to make a child hungry; if he is moderately healthy he will have all the requisites of a normal pig or puppy or plant-aphis, and will eat when he is allowed to, without thought. The important thing, to make him not a pig or puppy, nor even a delicate green insect, is to let him eat from the beginning with thought.

“Let him choose his foods, not what he likes as such, but for what goes with something else, in taste and in texture and in general gastronomic excitement. It is not wicked sensuality, as Walter Scott’s father would have thought, for a little boy to prefer buttered toast with spinach for supper and a cinnamon bun with milk for lunch. It is the beginning of a sensitive and thoughtful system of deliberate choice, which as he grows will grow too, so that increasingly he will be able to choose for himself and to weight values, not only sensual but spiritual.”

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