The Art of Eating by M.F.K. Fisher

Author:M.F.K. Fisher
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

The Gastronomical Me

The Measure of My Powers

1927–1928

THE winter of 1927–28 was one of conscious gourmandise for me, or perhaps gluttony would be the word.

The small college my cousin Nan and I went to was riddled with tradition and poverty. The Underground Railway still tunnelled under the fine old houses and the stately avenues of tall elm trees, and rats ran healthily in their own tunnels through the walls of the big brick dormitory where we lived. I remember that the wing with my room in it was leaning away from the main building, so that I had six-inch blocks under one side of my bed, my desk, and my fairly modern (that is, post-Civil War) bureau.

The meals were bad. We ate them ravenously, because classes were almost a two-mile walk from the Hall, and by the time we had sprinted home for lunch we were hungry indeed. By the time we had walked back and then to the Hall again for dinner we were frankly starved, and would joyfully have wolfed down boiled sawdust.

The only actual thing I can remember about any meals but breakfast is that once I walked by mistake through the back lot of the Hall, and passed a pile taller than I was of empty gallon cans labeled Parsnips.

Breakfasts, every Sunday morning, consisted of all we could hold of really delicious hot cinnamon rolls. We had to eat them by a certain time . . . undoubtedly a dodge to get us up for church. Nan and her roommate Rachel and I used to dress in our church clothes, eat cinnamon rolls until we were almost sick, and then go back to bed. By mid-afternoon we were indigestibly awake, and the day usually ended in homesick mopes, misunderstandings, and headaches.

It all seems incredibly stupid now, but was natural then.

Quite often Rachel and Nan and I would invent some excuse . . . a birthday or a check from home or an examination passed . . . and would go to The Coffee and Waffle Shop, where we could have four waffles and unlimited coffee or a five-course meal for forty cents. Then we would go to the theatre and eat candy; there were still small companies playing Smilin’ Through and Seventh Heaven then, or traveling magicians. And after the show we’d have another waffle, or two or three cups of hot chocolate.

On dates, which were limited because we were Freshmen, we drank chocolate or coffee and almost always ate chili beans. We would sit out in the cars, no matter how cold it was, and drink and eat. Then we would go back to the dance or the Hall. Everybody did that, and I suppose everybody smelled of chili powder and onions, so we never noticed it.

Now and then visiting relatives or kind family friends would invite us either to The Colonial Inn or to their homes. The food was always divine; that was the word we used, and we really meant it, after days of meals at the Hall.

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