The Art of Eating
By M.F.K. Fisher

Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher's warmth and wit shine in her more than 20 books, most of which are about the pleasures of the table. Responding to questions about why her subject was food rather than loftier topics, Fisher wrote, "It seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others." For Fisher, who died in 1992, eating was a metaphor for everything that is most important in life, and she ate reverently, ravenously, and with exquisite attention to what was on her plate. She is often credited with inventing the genre known as food writing, but this prose master defies categorization. I should only write so well, eat so well, live so well.