FOR M.F.K. FISHER, THE ENJOYMENT OF FOOD and wine were inextricably linked. As the greatest female food writer of the 20th century, her dozens of books and essays are bursting with mindful observations about eating with gusto and the distinctive pleasure that comes from nourishing yourself and others. Thus, it’s not surprising that most of her expansive body of work contains many references to wine.
But in this book, wine is the central character. The anthology spans her legendary writing career, from her indulgent, wine-drinking days in France in the 1930s, to her years as a gastronomic grande dame living in California wine country in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. Not just a food writer, Fisher’s love for wine and other potables and her passionate declarations of the deep satisfaction that comes from a dinner table populated by good food and drink and pleasant companions were in fact culture-changing.
M.F.K. Fisher packed a curious yet unrefined palate with her to France in 1929. She was only twenty-one, and her rudimentary explorations of wine, harvested in a conservative and religious small town during Prohibition, had hardly prepared her for the abundance of wine and drinking in her new country.
The French people she met while living in France with her first husband, Al Fisher, loved food. Wine was a necessity, too. It enhanced the meals that often spanned hours and courses. Aside from her fascination with the French art of eating, she was particularly taken with the availability and cost of wine. It was so inexpensively priced, it was impossible to not have it on the table: “Bordeaux and Chianti are 12 cents, sparkling Burgundy 90 cents. . . . Well, it’s too bad, isn’t it?,” she noted happily, if ironically, in a letter home.
The caliber of wine offered to her is astonishing to modern readers. M.F.K. Fisher educated her palate on wines from vineyards in the finest regions in France. On weekends she and Al took excursions, often to regions beyond Burgundy, where a long hike would end with a wine-fueled meal in a woodsy lodge. It was the foundation of her education on food and wine and would help create M.F.K. Fisher, the writer and gastronome.
Mary Frances and Al Fisher divorced several years after they returned from their stint in France. With her second husband, Tim Parrish, M.F.K. Fisher would travel even more extensively in Europe. The couple eventually settled on a vineyard in Switzerland perched above Lake Geneva. The couple loved the region’s characteristically thin, young white wines. Tim Parrish described them as “acid, bright, just sharp enough—which doesn’t explain it in the least.” They cooked and entertained often, each dish made from food grown in their garden and paired with local wines from the vineyards that surrounded their home. M.F.K. Fisher’s deep love for Tim, and their life together, inspired much of her work, including several pieces in this book: “The Standing and the Waiting,” “My Country, ’Tis of Thee,” and “How to Drink the Wolf.”
Later, as a single mother with two young girls to care for, food and wine—and the pairing of the two—became a job. In a regular column for House Beautiful, Mary Frances offered sage advice to legions of women hungry for ideas for what to serve for lunch on a spring day in May—and what to pair with it. “To Pique His Jaded Appetite” and “Hearts and Flowers” are windows into another world, one where M.F.K. Fisher, hostess and writer, dreamed up festive menus and picked sips to match. During this time she also began to write more about the other drinks she loved. The classic martini or a chilled glass of vermouth were favorite apéritifs. Fisher believed that pre-dinner drinks not only satisfied, they prepared the palate for a fine menu and helped make any dinner party more civilized.
Unlike the wine and beverage professionals of today, who might study wines and varietals for years in order to make the “perfect pairing,” M.F.K. Fisher was not formally trained in the art of matching wine to food. She picked her wines based on her tastes and what was available in her rural California town. She had an experienced palate, but the wines accessible to her were a humble substitute for what she had grown accustomed to in Europe. The pairings offered may not be perfect for today’s tastes, but they represent a meaningful moment in American gastronomic history, as pioneers like M.F.K. Fisher began to slowly stretch our taste buds in new directions.
Soon, M.F.K. Fisher saw opportunity among the vines. Her shift from writing about the simple pleasures of food and wine to investigating and commenting on the wine industry in Northern California and France is particularly evident in pieces like “All The Food and Wines Were There,” “A Vintage Spat,” and “Progress Trounces the Wine Snob.”
Wine, and an inherent interest in the people who tended the grapes and cultivated the bottles, was a life-long passion. M.F.K. Fisher spent much of her adult life in the wine country of California: St. Helena, Sonoma, and Glen Ellen. She was happy there—she said it reminded her of France. Her writing about wine became increasingly informed by both her life in California and her regular travels abroad. Her knowledge of viticulture and winemaking was valued, as were her formative opinions on the differences between New and Old World wines. Selections in this anthology culled from her book The Story of Wine in California (written in 1962), and selections from the Time-Life Book The Cooking of Provincial France (1968) illustrate her expertise.
Despite the wise opinions, what M.F.K. Fisher seemed to like best was simply enjoying food and wine together. “I like honest wines, all of them and always,” she wrote in “Some Ways to Laugh.” “. . . I could and would forgo any other liquid forever, as long as I might drink one humble wine with my daily bread.”
She kept a cellar full of wines from local vintners, and regularly served them to friends and fans in long lunches at her wine-country home. She kept careful record of these meals, noting who came, what they ate, and—of course—what they had to drink. One lunch with guests included “two bottles of excellent Portuguese rose . . . we eat and talk and it is very pleasant.” What was revealed to her around the table inspired pieces like “White Wine Trips,” “Apéritifs: The Civilizing Influence,” and “Wine is Life.”
Never before have M.F.K. Fisher’s writings about wine been collected in one place. It’s surprising—especially considering how good they are. Just as Clifton Fadiman said that M.F.K. Fisher “wrote about love, only rather better,” she also writes about wine “rather better” than most. Most wine writing swerves between the academic and the florid, all of it dosed with hubris. M.F.K. Fisher’s work never lacks opinions. But her notions are grounded in the sensual: how to enjoy wine, what makes the perfect apéritif, and descriptions of the way wine can spin “like music on our tongues.” M.F.K. Fisher is the best kind of wine writer. Not only does she make you more knowledgeable about and interested in wine, she makes you want to drink it.
She believed that “wine is life, and my life and wine are inextricable.” Thanks to this deep passion and lifelong interest in what was in her glass, she elevated the status of wine in the United States. The pieces in this collection prove her mastery as a writer and remind us that each sip is worthy of being savored and contemplated.
Anne Zimmerman