Fisher, M. F. K.

Fisher, M. F. K. (Mary Frances Kennedy) (1908–92) one of the finest American writers of the 20th century, devoted a substantial amount of her writing to food and cookery and in doing so created a new genre, of which her own work remains the outstanding example. As Davidson (1988c) put it when introducing an essay she had written on the nature of people who ‘love to cook’:

Among the famous writers on cookery in North America one stands apart, a star with her own share of the sky, a star whose luminosity differs in kind from all the others: this is M. F. K. Fisher. A quick look through her books will give the impression that they are about food—as indeed, in a sense, they are. But reading them reveals their transcendent quality; they are really about life itself.