Book Review: How to Cook a Wolf

How to Cook a Wolf
By MFK Fisher
202 pages.

This book was written for housewives and home cooks who wanted to learn to enjoy and be more creative in the kitchen, given the economic challenges of the Great Depression and the food and fuel shortages of World War II.

Fisher teaches us to cook with joy and creativity even with the simplest of ingredients, to admit hunger when it is present and to enjoy food with relish whether it's plentiful or not. She gives hints for making food stretch further, without making it seem stretched. She provides recipes, but more than that, she stimulates the imagination to use what is available and to add unexpected flourishes of freshness, luxury, or even quantity when nothing else is to be had. If you are someone without a penny in your pocket, she gives instructions to borrow fifty cents and then make a gruel that will keep you healthy and working for a week even though she admits it tastes terrible.

She challenges us to consider a piece of buttered toast, even if it's your last piece and has to be shared, as a fine feast. In what might be my favorite chapter, "A Wise Man," she writes,

If ... there is not very much to eat, the child should know it, but not oppressively ... twenty years later, maybe, he can think with comfortable delight of the little brown toasted piece of bread he ate with you once in 1942, just before that apartment was closed, and you went away to camp.

It was a nice piece of toast, with butter on it. You sat in the sun under the pantry window, and the little boy gave you a bite, and for both of you the smell of nasturtiums warming in the April air would be mixed forever with the savor between your teeth of melted butter and toasted bread, and the knowledge that although there might not be any more, you had shared that piece with full consciousness on both sides, instead of a shy awkward pretense of not being hungry.

Making mealtime a gathering that stirs fond memories even in times of depression or war is a sign of fortitude and creativity that I hope to emulate as a chef.

Fisher's cooking and writing is certainly influenced by convenience foods that were beginning to gain popularity in the '40s, and really took off in the '50s. I was surprised by her glib acceptance of canned foods (especially soups, mushrooms and tomato juice) and boxed cakes and cornbread. In my opinion, hardly any trustworthy recipe encourages the use prepackaged ingredients. Okay, I admit I will substitute a can of stock in a pinch (though this bouillon base is cheaper, tastier and keeps wonderfully in the freezer). But I'd rather not hear a "gourmet" singing the praises of a certain boxed gingerbread, even if she does admit in the end that her grandmother's recipe is better. But perhaps I'm losing the point that this book was written for an audience that did not have a lot of personal choices to make regarding food. They were bound by rations and economy, sometimes time and perhaps even raids and blackouts.

I was struck by the constant reference to conserving cooking fuel, which is not even a concern of mine when considering my week's menu or any recipe for that matter. I would have a difficult time, indeed, if I were forced to consider more than the price and preparation of the food.

I was also surprised by her unabashed enjoyment of a raw egg. What would ServSafe say?!

A few things I loved: the focus on economy, the focus on creativity and the charge to re-think nutrition outside of the meat-potatoes-and-vegetable-side standard of the time (and the current midwest). This book was an inspiration. This is the first time that pigeon and kasha have been desired items for my grocery list. Do you think I can find a pigeon supplier in Omaha?