Reading About Food: MFK Fisher

I’m sure most of you have read a lot of books about food. (Hi Ruthie, nice tweets!) Lately most of the ones I’ve read have been about the dark side of dining—I just finished Food, Inc., the newest in a line of reports on food poisoning, labor and animal abuse, the industrialization of our food supply, and world hunger. So I was delighted when I opened my mail this morning to find the copy of An Alphabet for Gourmets I’d ordered. It’s been over twenty years since I first read MFK Fisher’s 26 sensuous chapters devoted to some of her long-time obsessions (potato chips, macadamia, and caviar) and is full of quirky and eccentric essays on culinary traditions. If you’ve never read one of Fisher’s books—and there are many–you should. Here’s a little sample.