Recent from talks
M. F. K. Fisher
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
M. F. K. Fisher
Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher Parrish Friede (July 3, 1908 – June 22, 1992), writing as M.F.K. Fisher, was an American food writer. She was a founder of the Napa Valley Wine Library. Over her lifetime she wrote 27 books, among them Consider the Oyster (1941), How to Cook a Wolf (1942), The Gastronomical Me (1943) and a translation of Brillat-Savarin's The Physiology of Taste. Fisher believed that eating well was just one of the "arts of life" and explored this in her writing. W. H. Auden once remarked, "I do not know of anyone in the United States who writes better prose." In 1991 the New York Times editorial board went so far as to say, "Calling M.F.K. Fisher, who has just been elected to the American Academy and National Institute of Arts and Letters, a food writer is a lot like calling Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart a tunesmith. At the same time that she is celebrating, say, oysters (which lead, she says, 'a dreadful but exciting life') or the scent of orange segments drying on a radiator, she is also celebrating life and loneliness, sense and sensibility."
Fisher was born Mary Frances Kennedy on July 3, 1908, at 202 Irwin Avenue, Albion, Michigan. She told Albion City Historian Frank Passic:
I… was delivered at home by "Doc" George Hafford, a man my parents Rex and Edith Kennedy were devoted to. Rex was then one of the volunteer firemen, and since I was born in a heatwave, he persuaded his pals to come several times and spray the walls of the house. My father Rex was sure I would be born on July 4, and he wanted to name me Independencia. My mother Edith was firmly against this completely un-Irish notion, and induced Doc Hafford to hurry things up a bit, in common pity.
Rex was a co-owner (with his brother Walter) and editor of the Albion Evening Recorder newspaper.
In 1911, Rex sold his interest in the paper to his brother, and moved the family to the West Coast, where he hoped to buy a fruit or citrus orchard. The family spent some time in Washington with relatives, and then traveled down the coast to Ventura, California, where Rex nearly purchased an orange grove, but backed out after discovering soil problems. He next purchased and briefly owned the Oxnard Courier in Oxnard, California. From there he traveled to San Diego and worked for a local newspaper. In 1912 he purchased a controlling interest in the Whittier News and moved the family to Whittier, California. Rex initially purchased a house at 115 Painter Avenue. In 1919, he purchased a large white house outside the city limits on South Painter Avenue. The house sat on thirteen acres, with an orange grove; it was referred to by the family as "The Ranch." Although Whittier was primarily a Quaker community at that time, Mary Frances was brought up within the Episcopal Church.
Mary Frances enjoyed reading as a child, and began writing poetry at the age of five. The Kennedys had a vast home library, and her mother provided her access to many other books. Later, her father used her as stringer on his paper, and she would draft as many as fifteen stories a day.
Mary Frances received a formal education; however, she was an indifferent student who often skipped classes throughout her academic career. At the age of sixteen, her parents enrolled her in a private school: The Bishop's School in La Jolla, California. After one year there, she transferred to the Harker School for Girls in Palo Alto, California, adjacent to Stanford University; she graduated from Harker in 1927. Upon graduation, she attended Illinois College, but left after only one semester, In 1928, she enrolled in summer school at UCLA in order to obtain enough credits to transfer to Occidental College. While there, she met her future first husband: Alfred Fisher ("Al"). She attended Occidental College for one year; however, she married Al on September 5, 1929, and moved with him to Dijon, France.
Food became an early passion in her life. Her earliest memory of taste was "the grayish-pink fuzz my grandmother skimmed from a spitting kettle of strawberry jam". Her maternal grandmother Holbrook lived with them until her death in 1920. During that period, Holbrook was a source of tension in the household. She was a stern, rather joyless person, and a Campbellite who firmly believed in overcooked, bland food. She was also a follower of Dr. John Harvey Kellogg's dietary restrictions at the Battle Creek Sanitarium. Fisher would later write that during her grandmother's absences at religious conventions:
Hub AI
M. F. K. Fisher AI simulator
(@M. F. K. Fisher_simulator)
M. F. K. Fisher
Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher Parrish Friede (July 3, 1908 – June 22, 1992), writing as M.F.K. Fisher, was an American food writer. She was a founder of the Napa Valley Wine Library. Over her lifetime she wrote 27 books, among them Consider the Oyster (1941), How to Cook a Wolf (1942), The Gastronomical Me (1943) and a translation of Brillat-Savarin's The Physiology of Taste. Fisher believed that eating well was just one of the "arts of life" and explored this in her writing. W. H. Auden once remarked, "I do not know of anyone in the United States who writes better prose." In 1991 the New York Times editorial board went so far as to say, "Calling M.F.K. Fisher, who has just been elected to the American Academy and National Institute of Arts and Letters, a food writer is a lot like calling Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart a tunesmith. At the same time that she is celebrating, say, oysters (which lead, she says, 'a dreadful but exciting life') or the scent of orange segments drying on a radiator, she is also celebrating life and loneliness, sense and sensibility."
Fisher was born Mary Frances Kennedy on July 3, 1908, at 202 Irwin Avenue, Albion, Michigan. She told Albion City Historian Frank Passic:
I… was delivered at home by "Doc" George Hafford, a man my parents Rex and Edith Kennedy were devoted to. Rex was then one of the volunteer firemen, and since I was born in a heatwave, he persuaded his pals to come several times and spray the walls of the house. My father Rex was sure I would be born on July 4, and he wanted to name me Independencia. My mother Edith was firmly against this completely un-Irish notion, and induced Doc Hafford to hurry things up a bit, in common pity.
Rex was a co-owner (with his brother Walter) and editor of the Albion Evening Recorder newspaper.
In 1911, Rex sold his interest in the paper to his brother, and moved the family to the West Coast, where he hoped to buy a fruit or citrus orchard. The family spent some time in Washington with relatives, and then traveled down the coast to Ventura, California, where Rex nearly purchased an orange grove, but backed out after discovering soil problems. He next purchased and briefly owned the Oxnard Courier in Oxnard, California. From there he traveled to San Diego and worked for a local newspaper. In 1912 he purchased a controlling interest in the Whittier News and moved the family to Whittier, California. Rex initially purchased a house at 115 Painter Avenue. In 1919, he purchased a large white house outside the city limits on South Painter Avenue. The house sat on thirteen acres, with an orange grove; it was referred to by the family as "The Ranch." Although Whittier was primarily a Quaker community at that time, Mary Frances was brought up within the Episcopal Church.
Mary Frances enjoyed reading as a child, and began writing poetry at the age of five. The Kennedys had a vast home library, and her mother provided her access to many other books. Later, her father used her as stringer on his paper, and she would draft as many as fifteen stories a day.
Mary Frances received a formal education; however, she was an indifferent student who often skipped classes throughout her academic career. At the age of sixteen, her parents enrolled her in a private school: The Bishop's School in La Jolla, California. After one year there, she transferred to the Harker School for Girls in Palo Alto, California, adjacent to Stanford University; she graduated from Harker in 1927. Upon graduation, she attended Illinois College, but left after only one semester, In 1928, she enrolled in summer school at UCLA in order to obtain enough credits to transfer to Occidental College. While there, she met her future first husband: Alfred Fisher ("Al"). She attended Occidental College for one year; however, she married Al on September 5, 1929, and moved with him to Dijon, France.
Food became an early passion in her life. Her earliest memory of taste was "the grayish-pink fuzz my grandmother skimmed from a spitting kettle of strawberry jam". Her maternal grandmother Holbrook lived with them until her death in 1920. During that period, Holbrook was a source of tension in the household. She was a stern, rather joyless person, and a Campbellite who firmly believed in overcooked, bland food. She was also a follower of Dr. John Harvey Kellogg's dietary restrictions at the Battle Creek Sanitarium. Fisher would later write that during her grandmother's absences at religious conventions: