Those few of us who actually live to eat are less repulsive than boring...
On the other hand, I cannot count the good people I know who, to my mind, would be even better if they bent their spirits to the study of their own hungers. There are too many of us, otherwise in proper focus, who feel an impatience for the demands of our bodies, and who try throughout our whole lives, none too successfully, to deafen ourselves to the voices of our various hungers. Some stuff the wax of religious solace in our ears. Other practice a Spartan if somewhat pretentious disinterest in the pleasures of the flesh, or pretend that if we do not admit our sensual delight in a ripe nectarine we are not guilt ... of even that tiny lust!
I believe that one of the most dignified ways we are capable of, to assert and then reassert our dignity in the face of poverty and war's fears and pains, is to nourish ourselves with all possible skill, delicacy, and ever-increasing enjoyment. And with our gastronomical growth will come, inevitably, knowledge and perception of a hundred other things, but mainly of ourselves. Then Fate, even tangled as it is with cold wars as well as hot, cannot harm us.
~ from How To Cook A Wolf, by M.F.K. Fisher
5 comments:
What a great passage! Thanks for sharing that.
No problem. Welcome back.
Great stuff. I must, must get hold of a copy of How To Cook a Wolf. I'd never heard of it until you quoted this passage and then bam, someone else mentioned it on their blog. It was even raved about in a travel narrative I just finished!
Acquisitionist: The major MFK Fisher works are collected in "The Art of Eating" - it's a heavy volume, hard to lug around - especially since you will be travelling soon - but it's a great collection to have if you're interested in writings about the desire for food and love.
Thanks for that. It may be hard to find in Aust but I'll investigate.
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