If you don't know who M.F.K. Fisher is, you should."Her writing about food stands apart from most such writing in our own twenty-first century, most of which might be published until the title "Food as Chemistry." Fisher did not view food analytically-so many grams of this, so many units of that. Instead, the reader is introduced to food as a source of pleasure, as a welcome addition to the art of enjoying friends and family. Her writing connects modern people to the ancients, and develops the thesis that the art of eating has a long history, one that some cultures cherish and others ignore to their impoverishment."
Some quotes:
“Sharing food with another human being is an intimate act that should not be indulged in lightly.”
“Wine and cheese are ageless companions, like aspirin and aches, or June and moon, or good people and noble ventures . . .”
“There are many of us who cannot but feel dismal about the future of various cultures. Often it is hard not to agree that we are becoming culinary nitwits, dependent upon fast foods and mass kitchens and megavitamins for our basically rotten nourishment.”
"A complete lack of caution is perhaps one of the true signs of a real gourmet: he has no need for it, being filled as he is with a God-given and intelligently self-cultivated sense of gastronomical freedom."
"Almost every person has something secret he likes to eat."
"Probably no strychnine has sent as many husbands into their graves as mealtime scolding has, and nothing has driven more men into the arms of other women as the sound of a shrill whine at the table."
"First we eat, then we do everything else."
Go buy some of her books.
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