How to Cook a Wolf

This book is a valuable cultural artifact - a time capsule of food wisdom designed to help the enterprising housewives feed their families well during food scarcity brought about by war. The author's tone is authoritative, cynical, and no-nonsense. I fell in love with her voice. She is a woman who has seen much and feared none of it. She's not afraid of bombs, starvation, or war.

These recipes were very interesting to me and I harbor a secret desire to cook my way through them someday. Love love love it all.

The best book I’ve ever read that makes poverty chic. Also Fisher recommends you save the liquid from canned vegetables to make yr own stock. The potato soup recipe is classic, we made it last week to great results even though I had no idea what "scalded milk" is. The final recipe in the book presumes the war will be over eventually, and calls for fruit marinated in liquor, frozen, then splashed with half a bottle of champagne. The allusion to the wolf sniffing at the keyhole is almost terrifying to those of us who are living on limited means. Get back.

Bears many readings... I found myself comparing it to disaster prep tv shows and guidebooks, if they were written by thoroughly decent people who had actually experienced poverty and want and stayed decent.

Strong opinions from a woman of vast and varied experience. Sometimes, I agree with her. Her annotations allow for her changing her mind. I do like seeing how she altered her recipes over time, as mine often do. But... is it a cookbook? A manual for how to live? I'm not actually going to take any of her advice. For example, I will continue to use dish soap to wash up, rather than just water.

M.F.K.. Fisher is worshipped by foodies and prose lovers alike. This book was written in the midst of World War Two and is full of advice (practical and otherwise) on maintaining pleasure in food even in the midst of privation and rationing. To be honest, many of the recipes sound awful -- never would I like to replace butter with bacon grease -- and make me grateful for the culinary plenty we all enjoy today. Fisher's tone is that of an approachable literary/culinary aristocrat -- she writes like a Brahmin without pretention. She could have been a 20th century Austen had she tended toward the novel. I wish she had, for I would rather eat food than read about it..

First published in the early years of WWII, Fisher's book provides advice about how to eat economically and well during lean times. More than a cookbook but not quite a collection of essays, How to Cook a Wolf incorporates the best elements of both. While I didn't enjoy this one as much as Consider the Oyster, it still beautifully evoked a time period and made me wish I was of a temperament and inclination to cook all our meals from scratch. Some wonderful-sounding recipes, too.

Fisher's classic nonfiction work was published during World War II, for the purpose of providing cooking and household advice for people newly dealing with rations and restraint, and was was revised with parenthetical notes in the 1950s. This is, in part, a cookbook, as there are some recipes throughout, but it's also conversational and rambling in tone, Fisher's wryness shining through. She provides advice on preparing soups, using eggs, buying alcohol on the cheap (in bulk), and general advice on being economical.

I found the book to be interesting, but I'd had hopes that some of the recipes would interest me to try (none did) or that the content would seem innovational (it didn't). I was surprised at how many recipes included pimientos.