JAMES ARMSTRONG
People ask me: Why do you write about food? The easiest answer is to say that, I am hungry. But there is more than that...our three basic needs for food, security, and love are so mixed and mingled and entwined...we cannot think of one without the other. When I write of hunger, I am really writing about love and the hunger for it,” MFK Fisher, The Gastronomical Me.
The multi-pronged facets of how we think and write about food in America, its rich diversity of traditions and cultures, its production and nutrition, the recipes, stories, and even the celebrity are so pervasive and interwoven, it is hard to imagine a time when that wasn’t the case. And yet, up until the mid-20th century, how we saw and wrote about our culinary landscape was bland.
MFK Fisher changed all that.
The First Woman of American Food Writing
When young author Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher sent out a manuscript for her first food-inspired book, Serve It Forth, she shortened her name simply to MFK Fisher. The year was 1937, and she did this at the insistence of a publisher who said, “Women don’t write this way.” That doesn’t quite capture the truth. Regarding food as subject, no one — men or women — wrote “this way.” When women did write about food, it was narrowly focused on recipes and household tips, often relegated to the back pages of a newspaper, or ladies’ homemaking magazines. But Fisher’s prose was different. Candid, evocative, lyrical, she used food as a vehicle for understanding the world, and her place in it. Gender ambiguity would get her books out into the hands of readers. As it turned out, readers were hungry for her stories that told of the honest pleasures of cooking and eating, alone or with companions, at home or in far-flung places. At the same time, she did not shy away from the darker sides of the human experience.
“To Mary Frances,” renowned memoirist, editor, and critic Ruth Reichl states in her 2019 LitHub essay, MFK Fisher’s Lifetime of Joyous Eating, “food is a metaphor for life.” Considered the first woman of American food writing and journalism, MFK Fisher’s influence cannot be measured. In effect, she created the genre, even if she might have rejected the name. The Gastronomical Me, published in 1943, is the first of its kind, a true food memoir. In November 2024, The New York Times published a list of the 25 Most Influential Cookbooks of the last 100 years — curated by a panel of regarded writers and chefs. How to Cook a Wolf, MFK Fisher’s seminal treatise written during the harsh realities of World War II, places as number 8 in that roster. Deemed one of the best of her 30+ works, it is more book than cookbook, dealing with hard times: the wolf at the door. She illuminated the ways to create enjoyment and plenty in a time of fear, shortages, and rations. Don’t be afraid of the wolf. Invite him in.
Invitation: Honoring MFK Fisher’s Legacy/ Empowering Today’s Writers
Les Dames d’Escoffier International (LDEI,) a philanthropic nonprofit organization of women leaders in food, beverage, hospitality, and farming, has long held MFK Fisher in the highest esteem. Before her death in 1992, Fisher gave LDEI permission to create an award in her name. The MFK Fisher Prize bestows recognition of excellence on women’s work in multi-media formats that expand our understanding and appreciation of food and culture. Building on that recognition, LDEI is proud to present the inaugural MFK Fisher Symposium for Women in Food and Storytelling. Co-hosted by local chapter, Les Dames Nashville, this summit will be held Friday, April 4, and Saturday, April 5, at the Nashville Downtown Public Library and The Malin co-working center in Wedgewood-Houston, respectively. Programming will be geared to food writers, journalists and reporters, cookbook authors, editors, publicists, and the like. However, it is open to anyone interested in food genres as vocation or avocation, or in the life and legacy of MFK Fisher.
Driving the content is a blockbuster line-up of luminaries in the wide arena of food writing and journalism. Ruth Reichl, an icon whose breadth of work covers memoirs, novels, essays, cookbooks, and restaurant reviews, will be the keynote speaker. In conversation with her about mentorship will be Toni Tipton-Martin, award-winning food and nutrition journalist and editor-in-chief of Cook’s Country Magazine.
Breakout sessions will cover an array of panels and workshops. Topics range from Storytelling through Recipes, How to Write and Submit a Good Pitch, Video Skills for Culinarians, Voice in Recipe Writing, and Carving Out Time for Your Writing. Presenters of note include Kim Severson of The New York Times, Hanna Raskin of The Food Section, and Lisa Donovan, author of Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger. Also featured are Virginia Willis and Tanya Holland, both of whom are chefs, cookbook authors, and media personalities. Literary agent Sally Ekus will present a Cookbook Intensive.
Attendance will be capped at 225. To view the entire program and register online, visit LDEI.org/mfk-fisher-symposium.