Here Let Us Feast

**Legend of culinary writing, M.F.K. Fisher introduces readers to the gastronomical writing that most influenced her--now with a new introduction by legend in her own right, Betty Fussell, author of *Eat, Live, Love, Die** *"[M.F.K. Fisher's] latest excursion into the art or science of gastronomy is more an anthology of the finest writing on the subject than strictly a text of her own composition. Here are extensive excerpts from such widely diversified writers as Edgar Saltus, Petronius Arbiter, Tobias Smollett, Lucius Apuleius, Ovid, Rabelais, Plato and others. Mrs. Fisher begins her book with the introductory verse to the King James Version of the Bible... [a]nd she concludes with long excerpts from gastronomic Americana, ranging from Washington Irving to Ernest Hemingway. Spread thickly in between is a royal feast, indeed!" --* The New York Times*

M.F.K. Fisher is our host for the potluck of the ages, and there could be no better person for the job. The celebrated author of such books as *The Art of Eating, Cooking of Provincial France* , and *With Bold Knife and Fork* knows how to prepare a feast of reading as no other. She has extended her invitations with the utmost care (and she has refined the list in this revised edition of her 1946 classic): Charles Lamb roasts us a pig; Tobias Smollett boils a goose and serves it up in a sauce of pepper, lovage, coriander, mint, rue, anchovies, and oil; Lewis Carroll can be depended on for some unusual tea.

In addition to these selections are Ms. Fisher's own thoughts--she traces gluttony through the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, discusses ancient and modern chinese literature, and claims that the story of a nation's life is charted by its gastronomy. M.F.K.. Fisher has arranged everything perfectly, and the result is a succession of unforgettable courses that will entice the most reluctant epicure.