Serve It Forth
by M. F. K. Fisher 
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In Serve It Forth, her first book, M. F. K. Fisher takes readers on an animated journey through culinary history, beginning with the honey-loving Greeks and the immoderate Romans. Fisher recalls a hunt for snails and truffles with one of the last adepts in that art and recounts how Catherine de Medici, lonely for home cooking, touched off a culinary revolution by bringing Italian chefs to France. Each essay makes clear the absolute firmness of Fisher's taste--contrarian and unique--and her show more skill at stirringmemory and imagination into a potent brew. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
I think I ran into a reference to this food writer when reading reviews of Garlic and Sapphires (which I haven't read yet) She has a large oeuvre of short essays about gastronomy that began in the 1930s. This was her first publication and it was charmingly dated, light and amusing. Snails, tangerines, subtleties, histories and personalities. (August 30, 2005)
I've read that this is the weakest of her books and I still really liked it. It's nice to dip in every now and again. The culinary history is particularly interesting.
Such a collection of stories, ranging from the loving execution of a rabbit to a considered look at kitchens, and a still relevant look at the social status of vegetables (think of the commotion about Obama eating arugula).
Essays on food by one of America's much admired prose stylists. Fisher had the good luck to live in France for several years, where she ate well and learned to develop her "powers of enjoyment" where food and drink were concerned. The book divides neatly into two types of essays--a sort of whimsical history of food (which I didn't find particularly effective) and those which celebrate food and memory (which are much better.) Her tone, which is a sort of girlish gush with sharp edges, grows on you.
Reading The Art of Eating 50th anniversary edition but am hard pressed to not divide the entire book into the five books that make the whole.
Too frenchie for me.
Too frenchie for me.
Disappointing
150. No dw. Screen grab of 1st ed dw. MF 1st book .
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Food Memoirs
97 works; 9 members
Author Information
272+ Works 9,402 Members
Born July 3, 1908, in Albion, Michigan, M.F.K Fisher was raised primarily in Whittier, California, where she enjoyed cooking meals for her family. Encouraged in literary pursuits by her parents, she combined her favorite pastimes-cooking and writing-and began writing about cooking as early as 1929 when she moved to Dijon, France, with her first show more husband, Alfred Fisher. Fisher was educated at Illinois College, Occidental College, the University of California at Los Angeles, and the University of Dijon. She has written under the names Mary Frances Parrish, Victoria Bern, and Victoria Berne. A prolific author, her work is primarily autobiography and memoir. Her long list of publications includes Dubious Honors (1988) and Stay Me, Oh Comfort Me: Journals and Stories, 1933-1945, (1993). She also contributed articles to widely known magazines, including the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and Gourmet. Fisher died of Parkinson's disease on June 22, 1992, in Glen Ellen, California. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
M. F. K. Fisher has a Legacy Library. Legacy libraries are the personal libraries of famous readers, entered by LibraryThing members from the Legacy Libraries group.
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Serve It Forth
- Original publication date
- 1937
- Epigraph
- "Of course,"concluded Robert Kilburn Root, sitting crosslegged and contemplating his Shashlik---"of course if this book is well larded with anecdotes, it will of necessity be short."
- Dedication
- For R.B.K. and E.O.H.K.
- First words
- There are two kinds of books about eating: those that try to imitate Brillat-Savarin's, and those that try not to.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Truly a man is not a gourmand, much less a fin gourmet, by wishing to be so.
- Blurbers
- Fadiman, Clifton
Classifications
- Genres
- Nonfiction, Food & Cooking, Biography & Memoir
- DDC/MDS
- 641.013 — Applied science & technology Home economics & family management Food, Cooking & Recipes / Meals, Picnics standard subdivisions Philosophy and theory [formerly: Epicurism]
- LCC
- TX631 .F53 — Technology Home economics Home economics Nutrition. Foods and food supply
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 247
- Popularity
- 131,528
- Reviews
- 8
- Rating
- (3.99)
- Languages
- 5 — Chinese, English, French, Japanese, Spanish
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 6
- ASINs
- 4
