An Alphabet for Gourmets (1949)

It is with great regret that I confess total ignorance of M.F.K. Fisher (1908 - 1992) and her body of work up until today. She was not so much a "food writer" as a writer who thought a lot about food through essays and short stories. She published over twenty books and two volumes of journals and letters written in her unique style that led many readers to believe for a while that she was a man.

Fisher even produced a translation of Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin's "The Physiology of Taste" in 1949. I've been reading the 1970 translation by Anne Drayton, which is perfectly competent but I wonder now what Fisher's interpretation must be like.

Gourmet magazine has republished a series of her essays online called "An Alphabet for Gourmets" -- a collection later printed as a book.

By chance, I stumbled upon her "S is for Sad..." segment. If you want to know what my book is about, I encourage you to read Fisher's take on the inextricable link between death, food and appetite.

"...underneath the anguish of death and pain and ugliness, hunger and unquenchable life are facts, shining, peaceful. It is as if our bodies, wiser than we who wear them, call out for encouragement and strength and, in spite of us and of the patterns of proper behavior we have learned, compel us to answer, and to eat."