How to Cook a Wolf, by MFK Fisher

[rachelmanija]

I believe that one of the most dignified ways we are capable of, to assert the 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.

This unique and lovely book has a very unusual pedigree. It was first published in 1942, as a book on cooking during shortages, rationing, and other problems of war. It was then added to extensively in 1954, during the Cold War, without changing or omitting a word of the original text, but instead adding notes in brackets.

This method creates a double period piece, a record of Fisher's changing ideas and new experiences, reflections on times past, new recipes, and a number of hilarious bits in which she admits that she has no idea what she was talking about in the original, like an original bit where she suggests using leftover or canned rice followed by a bracketed addendum where she wonders what she was thinking and whether canned rice exists or has ever existed.

Some of my favorite parts were Fisher's account of her aunt who called headcheese (itself a euphemism) by the polite alternative of "cold shape," the absolutely hilarious story of how we should always trust cats to steer us clear of smoked salmon that will be unchanged and bright orange till doomsday, and the character portrait of Sue, who foraged hundreds of types of sage in the California hills and dug potatoes from neighbors' patches in the dead of night.

Like all the best period pieces, it's both a record of what used to be before things changed and an aching reminder of what hasn't changed. I hope none of us ever need to attempt her life-sustaining "sludge" or do strange and ingenious things to cook food with the minimum use of heating oil, but the spirit of seeking comfort and even coziness in a time of danger is still relevant.

How to Cook a Wolf

Comments

[sovay]

I hope none of us ever need to attempt her life-sustaining "sludge"

What was it?

(I would also trust a cat on the edibility of salmon!)

[rachelmanija]

http://www.fourpoundsflour.com/how-to-cook-a-wolf-week-sludge/

[sovay]

That's amazing, because that is clearly edible, and so close to being an ordinary soup or a stew, and yet it is unmistakably sludge.

[rachelmanija]

Fisher notes that it solidifies when cooled, and if you can cut it into slices and fry it like scrapple it's actually delicious, but if you're cooking it then you have neither fat to fry it in nor heating oil with which to do so.

[sholio]

I appreciate the descriptiveness of the recipe ingredient "1 floppy carrot."

This reminds me vaguely, and not too pleasantly, of the much simpler version that my husband and I basically lived on for the first year or so we were married, which was essentially making a bunch of rice in a rice cooker (the one complicated appliance we owned) and emptying cans of soup into it.

[rachelmanija]

Check this out, it's amazing. (Start from the bottom.)

http://www.fourpoundsflour.com/category/tenement/

[sholio]

I’ve decided it would be wise for me to use this money to purchase apples (because I would like to poop sometime this week) and lemons (to prevent scurvy).

This sounds promising. :D

[sophia_sol]

okay that was fascinating, thanks so much for linking it!

[sholio]

Okay, wow, that was a really fascinating read! Also, I kept wanting to feed her the entire time. XD It's harrowing just to read about someone doing that to themselves for a week, let alone thinking about actually living like that (admittedly with probably a much higher tolerance for tripe and other forms of offal).

[rachelmanija]

Her descriptions of handing the tripe... BARF FOREVER.

I too am appalled at people doing hard labor on that diet.

[sholio]

We ate organ meats growing up, but not that particular one. My least favorite thing about that was preparing tongue, because it is VERY OBVIOUSLY A TONGUE. (You cut off the taste buds, which is also about as fun as it sounds like.)

[minoanmiss]

But did you find the tongue worth it? I came to tongue as an adult, and I find it delicious and totally worth dealing with the prep.

[sholio]

Oh yes! I do like it; I just don't like the prep. But it's very tasty as a meat.

[dantesspirit]

I grew up helping my mom prepare tongue.

Nope. I will not eat it anymore as an adult.

[minoanmiss]

Aww, I'm sorry. FWIW I feel that way about cow feet.

[dantesspirit]

Oh gods, yes. And pigs feet. And tripe.}:P

And meatloaf.

Thought I will make that for my husband, I just won't eat it.

[minoanmiss]

True love is cooking something you hate for someone you love enough to feed.

[dantesspirit]

Yup! It's also why I make sweet potatoes for him. I won't eat those either}:P

[kathmandu]

The times when she couldn't stomach the food as made, but didn't replace it with something equivalent, meant she was eating *less* food than recommended.

And I gather in some times and places it's been possible to buy tripe pre-cleaned and pre-boiled, so you're basically just reheating and adding seasonings at home.

[sholio]

Yeah, the times when she was like "It turned out terrible and I didn't eat it" made a little part of me die inside. XD You can at least replace it with something else!

(I grew up poor - not THAT poor, obviously, but it took me a long time as an adult to internalize the idea that if you burn something or it turns out awful, you can just throw it out; you don't have to go ahead and eat it.)

[dantesspirit]

Hell, we still have issues throwing things out if they burn, or as in the case with breakfast yesterday, simply do not turn out and look utterly unappetizing.

It took both of us several minutes of back and forth before we finally admitted, that yes, we'd like it to go away now please.

[rachelmanija]

Oh, right. In real life, you'd eat it regardless.

[sovay]

(admittedly with probably a much higher tolerance for tripe and other forms of offal).

I am very fond of many organ meats; I have gone out of my way to purchase or cook them in the past and am currently in a state of slight withdrawal from the deli tongue at Mamaleh's. (Which does, in fact, in the case, look just like a very large tongue.) I come partly from a food culture where that's normal.

The 800 calories a day is appalling then and now.

[cyphomandra]

This is fascinating!! And slightly terrifying. I’ve never managed to make myself eat tripe although have done haggis (tasty)and blood sausage (tasted like metallic ashes).

[rosefox]

Oh man, it doesn't help that this person doesn't seem to know a lot about cooking. I definitely would not have thought that boiled rice in scalded milk meant boiling the rice in the milk.

The bit about saving the broth from stewing corned beef and cabbage or whatever was really interesting. I hadn't thought of doing that before—usually if I boil things in a pot, they're meant to be eaten as a soup/stew, not separated out. My mother was just telling me the other day that she makes a quick hearty beef broth by simmering roast beef rather than beef bones, arriving at the same concept from the opposite direction.

[dantesspirit]

This reminds so much of the So You Don't Have To videos from LiveJournal.

[rosefox]

M.F.K. Fisher was an absolute gem.

Let us take for granted that the situation, while uncomfortable, is definitely impermanent and can be coped with.

I need this tattooed on the back of my hand where I can see it whenever I need a reminder.

[rachelmanija]

I love her. And there's something so soothing about testimony from people who have been through similar situations before.

[grayswandir]

1) I realized after reading your post that I had no idea what "head cheese" was, so I went and looked it up. As names go, "cold shape" is indeed vastly less horrifying. But still pretty weird.

2) The "sludge" looks 100% edible to me. With the right spices it could probably be really good, actually. And also probably way healthier than what most people eat for dinner on any given day. :P

[atwill]

I read this book for my food studies class and loved it so much!

Let him choose his foods .... It is not wicked sensuality ... for a little boy to prefer buttered toast with spinach for supper and a cinnamon bun with milk for lunch. It is the beginning of a sensitive and thoughtful system of deliberate choice, which as he grows will grow too, so that increasingly he will be able to choose for himself and to weigh values, not only sensual but spiritual.

He will remember, some time when he is a man, that once he decided not to eat a chocolate bar, but to let the taste of a stolen apple ride an hour longer or two on his appreciative tongue. And whatever decision he must make as a man will probably be the solider for that apple he ate so long ago.

[minoanmiss]

I adore MFK Fisher so much. I read this one but don't own it ; I think I gave it to someone whom I felt needed it.

[merit]

I'm thinking about canned rice a bit because I guess technically it is possible? Maybe it existed in a fever dream of five minutes or hot marketing?

[carbonel]

I noticed a shelf of cooked (flavored) rice in bags when I was at Aldi's last week. Apparently all you have to do is massage the bag to break it up, then microwave it. I wanted to regular rice (none in stock), but I decided I could live without rice-in-a-bag because I had some brown rice as a backup.

None of that tech would have existed when the book was written, of course.

[carbonel]

I love MFK Fisher's writing, though I've never been terribly inspired to make any of her recipes, possibly because her recipes are more like guideposts than actual directions.

I've thought many times about making the gingerbread recipe that's in one of her books, though.

Maybe it's time for a reread. I just hope the print in the book isn't as small as I remember it being.