When a cookbook has a chapter called "How to Make a Pigeon Cry," you
know it's going to be about more than recipes. Originally written in
1942 by that most lyrical of food writers, M.F.K. Fisher, as a guide
for the enforced frugality of food rationing, the book does have tips
on how to stretch scrambled eggs by using breadcrumbs and even how to
make your own soap. But the real lesson is in how Fisher cherishes each
egg or dollop of cream like it was a gift delivered unexpectedly to her
door. Even water isn't just water; it's something to be savored and
discussed. (Don't consider it boiled until it nearly leaps out of the
pan "full of sound and fury," she advises — but don't boil it too long,
either, making it "flat and exhausted.") Only when we understand water
can we move on to soup and meats, each dish seasoned with Fisher's
comfortable wit and a clarity of purpose born of scarcity that modern
cooks can only imagine.
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