M.F.K. Fisher How to Cook a Wolf Chapters 17-21

 Chapter 17:  How to Be a Wise Man

A wise man can always eat well ~ Chinese Proverb

Why do we permit and even condone the feeble packaged bread that our men try to keep strong on! (and women...and, worst of all, children!

Why do we let our millers rob the wheat of all its goodness and then buy the wheat germ for one thousand times its value from our druggists so that our children my be strong and healthy?

Why do we go on eating cakes and puddings after good meals, because we always did when we were children?

Why do we talk longingly of the honest beef stew our Aunt Matilda used make while we spend a dollar or two eating third-rate steamed chicken dipped in batter and fried in a shameful pot of synthetic grease in some roadside hashery?

Fisher goes on to answer her own question with the sentence, "Because we are sentimental and loyal to what we want to remain sweet memories..."

I can wax poetic over any number of foods from my childhood.  Granny's fried chicken breakfasts on church mornings.  Grandmother's Indian War Cake.  Mama's Sunday night suppers of vegetable soup and toasted pimento cheese sandwiches.  It is not just the food, but the memory of those meals, the reason why we had those particular things that meant something to me in childhood and for which I long now.  The place, the atmosphere, the people those meals were taken with.

And this is what Fisher is trying to impart here.  To teach children not just to eat, but to eat with thought.  She feels strongly that it's the combination of tastes and textures and temperatures as well as the ability to choose that makes us thoughtful eaters in our youth.  She feels a child should be encouraged to look at food and determine which of those foods he needs at that moment and to savor that food not only for its nutritional value but for the moment as well.

So why did I so savor those canned vegetable soup meals on Sunday evenings?  Because on that night only, the tv in the den was turned toward the kitchen table.  We were altogether as a family, gathered at the table.  It was cold and dark outdoors, and yes, even in parts of the house, but those two rooms were warm and comforting and the food was hot and good.   And we watched the Wonderful World of Disney on the tiny little television, and we all enjoyed those meals very much.  The dinner table was not a place of contention in those days as it became in later years.  Probably because it was an easy meal and required only two pans Mama wasn't tired and weary.  It was a wonderful little thing we did every single Sunday night.

And that's also why I've made such a point of having Fried Chicken Sunday dinner for Taylor.  She savors that time with us as much as she does those foods I serve.

Lest you think it's a shame not to do it with the other three who live nearby, I assure you we have our own traditions of Strawberry Shortcake Supper and Make your own pizzas.  Those are things they enjoy.  They don't like fried chicken.  So be it.

Chapter 18:  How to Lure the Wolf

A non-food chapter this one...but it is Fisher's idea that we should look nice when we are making and serving a meal.  And she suggests sincerely that we hang a mirror in our kitchen wherein we might check our appearance throughout the day.

No kidding.

And a little shelf under the kitchen window might be a nice place to tuck a small lipstick, a comb and a compact of powder to set to rights the things that are wrong at that very moment when the doorbell rings and you think to check your appearance.

She feels it will do little harm to keep a bottle of hand lotion in the kitchen but assures her readers that it shouldn't be highly perfumed, and we must be careful not to pull apart lettuce leaves after we've just used it or else the salad will taste of the lotion and not of the lettuce.  Better yet, she suggests you use whatever sweet-smelling oil or fat is already in the kitchen...And here we've been told to save those butter wrappers to grease a cake tin and Fisher suggests we might use the remnant of fat on our hands instead.

If you handle onions or garlic, she recommends once they are deposited in the cooking pot, that you wash your hands in cold water with soap and then perhaps a bit of lemon juice rubbed into skin to remove odor.

And finally, she has a whole litany of ways in which one might avoid getting cooking odors caught in the hair...Not something I confess I have ever thought about or noticed particularly, though I confess those girls and guys that work around cooking food for hours at a time do smell of burgers and fries or hot oil if their task was to fry chicken.  It is the aroma of honest labor, and a shower will soon set them right. 

To be honest, my sole thought throughout this whole chapter was that not once did she mention an apron as a necessary bit of cooking equipment...and there you are. Not that I wear one, but I've often felt that I should.  To each his own.

Chapter 19: How to Drink to the Wolf

Another non-food chapter.  It seems to me if your budget is too strained for food, it's too strained for alcohol as well but then that's my personal opinion and mightn't be yours at all.  So, we must address alcohol on a budget.  I have no anecdotes of my own about this other than what a friend shared with another one day.

You see the other friend acknowledged that she'd become an alcoholic and had given up drinking with two years sobriety under her belt to celebrate.  The first friend had never had a problem with drink and was curious about what led to the alcoholism in the first place.  Her desire to understand the reasons WHY a person had become what they had become was something we shared in common.

The other friend replied honestly to her question.  "I liked beer.  So, I'd drink beer until I passed out."  To which my honest first friend replied, "I like Pepsi, but I never sat down and drank six at one time..."  Her reply sent us all off into a loud burst of laughter, but really you can hardly argue with her logic, can you?

So, what does Fisher's suggest if you must drink to the wolf?  Stop going to bars to have overpriced libations and drink at home with just one or two friends whom you enjoy greatly.  Or reduce your desire to drink down to the least expensive factor.  Forgo the pricey Scotch and get a gallon of gin instead.  (Sheesh...).  Buy drink by the case, not a single bottle.  

Or forgo the hard liquors and instead have beer.  Or wine.

Enough said on the subject.  I'm not against a drink now and then but for the most part we don't, so there's always that means to save money and not worry with that aspect of how we shall stretch the budget...On the rare occasion when we do buy liquor, it's usually a small bottle and we use it sparingly enough.  I prefer bourbon as it keeps well on the shelf for long periods, where wine doesn't once it's open.

Though I admittedly would no doubt figure out a way to salvage a bit for books, so again, to each his own.

Chapter 20: How Not to Be an Earthworm

This chapter deals with bomb shelters, a sad reminder of WWII and perhaps some of you have bunkers for nuclear fallout or even just tornado shelters, etc.  All are ugly per Fisher, and I admit that the few I've seen in photos are not pretty, but they serve their purpose admirably and that's what they should do.

The next thing she mentions next is the blackout conditions and how one might make the one room that is used as pleasant as possible for every person in the family.

Then she begins to discuss emergency rations and the wisdom of really thinking out the whole plan.  Ventilation is necessary for cooking, even in black out conditions.  Water supply is necessary not just for cooking but for drinking.  Salty foods would increase thirst and increased water consumption leads to more frequent urgency for toilet facilities.  Dishes would be a concern once meals were cooked, too.  How to wash, how to conveniently store them in tight spaces, etc.  

I will say that she makes many good points...and pray God I never need to figure all this out!

Chapter 21: How to Practice True Economy

Mere parsimony is not economy...Expense, and great expense, may be an essential part of true economy. ~Letters to a Noble Lord, by Edmund Burke, 1796

If it is possible, at some point one must hang the budget and have a right good splurge meal.  Start to finish, appetizer right down to wine and cheese at the end.  That's the summary of this chapter and Fisher is quite serious.  If, in fact, the budget would not withstand such a leap of faith, then pull the feast from memory of better days and thereby gain the sense of plenty and abundant luxury you might have forgotten long ago.

And then she shares several recipes of impossible (at that time she was writing) ingredients to get but which she feels would best suit the purpose.

Here's what I say.  I did it in the past and I have returned to some form of practice of this: Get you a great huge roast beef (even if it is Chuck Roast...I bought one the other day that weighed four pounds and was a good five inches thick, which I promptly cut in half but I admired that hunk of meat greatly before I did so and thought what a lovely thing it would have been back in the lean days to have the children see that simmering in the pot...) or a very large hen meant specifically for roasting.   Create as elaborate a dinner as you may from good meat and earthy cheap vegetables in gracious plenty.  Make a hearty dessert of fruit and breadcrumbs with a rich sauce of your choosing, either cream or simple butter and powdered sugar that melts slowly across the top.   In our family, canned milk over a hot bowl of peach cobbler was the height of luxurious eating and I still feel it is so.  John would prefer whipped cream but in the end it all melts and runs, doesn't it?

In our poorest days, at least twice a month we had a Proper Sunday Dinner of Pot Roast or Roast Chicken with vegetables and dessert.  The rest of the week might well be deep survival meals made of bits of meat and vegetables stretched with water and broth, dried beans, rice, pasta and more potatoes but on that one day we ate luxuriously.  I truly believe that is why my children were adults before they realized how very poor, we were...and why they in their turn knew how to eat well when the wolf was snuffling about their own doors.  They kept their families fed.  They keep their families fed. When they gather together and discuss food (three out of four of them are foodies) they recall not the fine feasting meals but the humblest ones, the bean burgers we cooked over a grill at a state park, the casseroles that were more stretch and less meat served to themselves and a half dozen impromptu guests.  

There is a conclusion written to the book, when it was updated in the 1950's.  

I hope you have enjoyed this series as much I have enjoyed writing it.  

If you would like a copy of this book, I have one available.  It's a former library copy but in good condition overall. I'm offering it as a drawing item and will use a random number generator to draw the name.  If you're interested just leave a comment below.  I'll keep the drawing open for one week from this publication date. 

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