Serve It Forth

by M.F.K. Fisher

A witty, idiosyncratic guided tour through culinaria past and present by the inimitable M.F.K. Fisher.

In Serve It Forth, her first book, M.F.K. Fisher is already in full bloom. She travels the byways and tables of history with her unique literary vision, laying bare the peculiarities, profundities, and absurdities of the eating (and thinking) life. She makes an equal feast of the sybaritic Roman diet and its decadent excesses as she does of the slow progress of the snail as it makes its arduous way from garden to escargot. Serve It Forth is an occasion for celebrating food in all its many hues and guises, under the guidance of our greatest modern food writer and philosopher.

Genres: Food, Nonfiction, Food Writing, Essays, Cooking, Memoir, History

Audible Audio

First published June 1, 1937

About the author

Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher was a prolific and well-respected writer, writing more than 20 books during her lifetime and also publishing two volumes of journals and correspondence shortly before her death in 1992. Her first book, Serve it Forth, was published in 1937. Her books deal primarily with food, considering it from many aspects: preparation, natural history, culture, and philosophy. Fisher believed that eating well was just one of the "arts of life" and explored the art of living as a secondary theme in her writing. Her style and pacing are noted elements of her short stories and essays.

Reviews

[P. · Rating 4 out of 5]

PREFATORY DIGRESSION:
I was (and still am) a huge Chronicles of Narnia fan. I would re-read those suckers yearly. They are the first books where I remember wanting to eat what the characters are eating. The word "delicious" is used a lot. There's a point in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe where the children are hiding with the beaver family in this little cave. Of course it's all winter outside. It goes like this:

"'Wherever is this?'" said Peter's voice, sounding tired and pale in the darkness. (I hope you know what I mean by a voice sounding pale.)

"...[It was] just a hole in the ground but dry and earth. It was very small so that when they all lay down they were all a bundle of clothes together, and what with that and being warmed up by their long walk they were really rather snug.... Then Mrs. Beaver handed round in the dark a little flask out of which everyone drank something--it made one cough and splutter a little and stung the throat, but it also mad eyou feel deliciously warm after you'd swallowed it--and everyone went straight to sleep."

So, the combination of having a voice described as pale (I LOVED that) and the minute description of how the delicious liquid affected the children, and the closeness of the cave combined with the coldness of the world outside meant that I conflated it all so that my personal mental conception of the word "delicious" is that of waking very early and warm in a dark cave and biting through the thinnest layer of ice possible so that it melts in your mouth and slakes your thirst.

WHAT WAS THE POINT OF THAT

M.F.K Fischer's book is delicious. Now you know exactly what I mean when I say that.

It is full of small, wonderfully-described personal stories like the one I just told. But better! Each chapter is like a little hard candy of a story that begs savoring. But I ended up crunching them all quickly. Luckily I own the book so I can go back.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

Worth it for "César" alone, hidden at the back of this volume, which amounts more to the feeling and form of a short story than that of an essay, as many great essays do, and is an exceedingly strange and beautiful piece of writing.

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

“If Time, so fleeting, must like humans die, let it be filled with good food and good talk, and then embalmed in the perfumes of conviviality.” May it be filled too, one might add, with fine writing like this. Serve it Forth is such a delightful read, full of surprising ideas and sentences. The chapter “The Standing and the Waiting” is quite simply one of the finest things I’ve ever read - unique, affecting, unforgettable. Five stars for that alone.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not the knock-me-off-my-feet tour de force I had been led to believe I would experience with MFK Fisher. Perhaps, this being her first outing, she had not found her voice yet, although I find that hard to believe because she is nothing in this book if not self-assured. I think the mix of topics she writes about has to be the issue, because her style seems fully present. There were many essays about food history, but they, for the most part, bordered on fiction, as they tended to gloss over any real events and lacked any sense of having been researched. On the other hand, the essays about her own personal experiences were the highlight, and every now and then you can feel yourself in the time and place she describes, whether it's in an old favorite restaurant with an old favorite waiter, or outside catching snails.

This book struck me more as evidence of how far the food world has come in the past century. It seems obvious that the height of food culture in her day has come and gone in ours. Fusion and experimentation has replaced French haute cuisine as the apex of culinary mastery, and the variety of fresh ingredients available today has put a cover of dust over the old classics. In any case, the book was short, well-written, and there were enough real moments of human experience in Serve It Forth to not put me off reading another of her books.

[Eingram · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read some strange recipes in my day - Roman condiments made from the juice of rotten fish, the front half of a capon sewed to the back half of a suckling pig (lest your dinner guests get bored), mellified man - but what follows is one of the weirdest, because, WTF England?
This is for a beverage supposedly drunk in England between, say, 1100 and 1450 AD.

"To make Cock Ale," instructs one ancient recipe reprinted in 1736 in Smith's Compleat Housewife , "take ten gallons of ale and a large cock, the older the better. Parboil the cock, flea him, and stamp him in a stone mortar until his bones are broken. You must craw and gut him when you flea him. Put him into two quarts of sack, and put to it 3 pounds of raisins of the sun stoned, some blades of mace, and a few cloves.
"Put all these into a canvas bag, and a little while before you find the ale has done working, put the ale and bag together into a vessel. In a week or 9 days' time bottle it up, fill the bottles but just above the necks, and leave the same to ripen as other ale."

What?

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not nearly as polished as Fisher's Consider the Oyster, which is my favourite of hers. This one is earlier, in fact her first published book, and it is patchy. In places she writes with a pretentious mock-scholarly tone which is nonsense. But in other places her raw talent as a writer (WH Auden apparently considered her the best writer in America) shines through. The short story, "Standing and Waiting," is absolutely singular; one of the greatest pieces of short narrative I've ever read. After reading three of her books (plus her translation of Brillat-Savarin), Fisher has moved into "collectable" for me. She's got a couple of dozen titles to her name; I imagine I'll be reviewing more of them here in months and years to come.

[Norman Van Aken · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book many years ago and am very glad to have picked it up again at this age. From the early chapter, "When a Man is Small" through 'The Standing and the Waiting", (with her memorable character Chexbres, who stayed in my memory through the intervening years) to the final chapter, "César" she proves why she is much more than a 'food writer' but truly a 'great writer'. God was she smart! Her perspective is one that stands the test of time. In this transient world that seems to ditch classicism and the eternally valuable with every post on social media platforms I found it vital and culturally broadening to read her work again.

[Hilary Hanselman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some lovely chapters that exemplify the charming and thoughtful prose I associate with Fisher, but also a fair few chapters that left me wanting more. I wouldn't hold this up as a great example of her talent but for any lover of her writing there are plenty of wonderful passages that make this a book worth reading

[Christina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a little bit in love with her.

[Gini · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found myself longing to reread MFK Fisher’s sumptuous Books, and this is the beginning of my journey.

And journey is the right word. A journey to France and Italy, yes. But even more, a journey through time. Reading MFK Fisher now is a glimpse into a world that we think in terms of the wars fought and the writers like Hemingway and the artists like Picasso. We tend not to think of it in terms of the food people ate. This is gastronomical anthropology.

And I’m not talking about recipes. There are cookbooks from the era. And there are memoirs written by chefs, looking back. This is different. These are essays written by a working journalist as they were experienced. This is not someone sharing their memories of Paris. It is the clack of their heels on the pavement as they arrive at a restaurant. Or at the home of a friend. And the food they will share. Fisher is far less concerned with how the food is prepared and far more concerned with how the experience of eating is enjoyed.

Fisher’s words evoke a memory that isn’t my own. I’m not reading about something that happened long ago; I’m living it.

[Edie · Rating 3 out of 5]

M.F.K. Fisher is one of those enigmatic historical figures I don't quite know what to do with. Was she problematic or just of her time? Probably both. Was she deeply serious and I need to look for meaning in every word or simply frivolous and I should enjoy her writing as a delightful bit of entertainment? Probably both. Fisher writes about food. Which allows her to write about society at large. She has definite opinions which she shares with utmost confidence. She has a keen eye for details. I am glad her books are getting an audio treatment, introducing this intriguing writer to a new generation of readers. Jane Oppenheimer's narration is pitch perfect, as always. I think I still find Fisher herself more interesting than her writing but I'll keep reading, if only to spend time in such an interesting woman's head. This essay collection is varied and not too long. If you've been wanting something a bit different, start here and then you can dive into the rest of her oeuvre. Thank you to everyone involved in the audio production, including Macmillan Audio and Netgalley, for the audioARC.

[G]

Serve It Forth is MFK Fisher’s first book. Originally published in 1937, I think it’s fair to say that it’s dated in some important aspects. There are cultural and ethnic value statements that would have been unremarkable in 1937, but hit us quite differently—and thus give offense—now. That does not diminish the importance nor interest of the book, but I confess it has taken a little of the edge off of my enjoyment.

I found myself wondering how accurate some of her food history is. I enjoyed the way she organized her observations about the social aspects of eating, and the choices people make about what they eat, by looking at long periods of food history. However, nearly 90 years on, I do wonder how accurate some of her statements are. There are some sweeping generalizations that may not have stood the test of time.

These reservations notwithstanding, it’s a book well worth (re-)visiting. I just love the freshness of Fisher’s voice, and the clarity of her prose. I’m delighted that Macmillan is not only reissuing some of her titles, but is giving us some audiobook versions. Jane Oppenheimer does a good job with the reading. Pitch perfect and well paced.

My thanks to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for a digital advance copy of the audiobook.

[Kay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh. I liked Fisher's attitude toward food (and share it): keep it simple. My preference is for the one main ingredient recipe. The latest penchant for what I call "baroque cooking" is an abomination. (I made the mistake of buying Half-Baked Harvest written by one of the cool new "baroque" cooks and the piling-on of ingredients was quite awful.) But I wasn't keen on Fisher's snobby voice, or her mistaken sense of her own profundity.

[Deon · Rating 4 out of 5]

"If Time, so fleeting, must like humans die, let it be filled with good food and good talk, and the embalmed in the perfumes of conviviality."

[J.C. · Rating 5 out of 5]

The more I read the more I think she's the best writer ever.

[Deb (Readerbuzz) Nance · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant essays, loosely written on the theme of food.

“WHEN shall we live, if not now?” asked Seneca before a table laid for his pleasure and his friends’. It is a question whose answer is almost too easily precluded. When indeed? We are alive, and now. When else live, and how more pleasantly than supping with sweet comrades?

M.F.K. Fisher looks at food in history, sharing some little-known stories of the foods people found and put together to eat, stories of the way a means of sustenance turned into art.

Sometimes there were big meals.

“Fifty swans, a hundred and ten geese, fifty capons ‘of hie grece’ and eight dozen other capons, sixty dozen hens, five herons, six kids and seven dozen rabbits (strange place here for such lively fourlegged wingless little beasts!), five dozen pullets for jelly and some eleven dozen to roast, a hundred dozen peacocks, twenty dozen cranes and curlews, and ‘wilde fowle ynogh.’”

Sometimes it was the presentation.

Flowers were often used thus by the Middle English, sometimes most fortunately. What could be more ludicrously lovely than a tiny crackled piglet all garlanded with lilies and wild daffodils? Or a baked swan in its feathers, with roses on its proud reptilian head?

The stunning changes that resulted from Catherine de Medici's decision to bring her chefs with her from Italy to France. A sad tale of a once-magnificent waiter's last night at the helm. The story of "a moment of complete gastronomic satisfaction."

If you call yourself a food reader, this and M.F.K. Fisher's other collections of essays are must-reads. And even if you are not, even if you are simply a lover of great writing, this and Fisher's other works will delight you.

[Tama · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read MFK Fisher's book The Gatronomical Me, about a year ago and ~loved~ it. To me this one is more like a report done for a class, with the occasional chapter of her heartfelt, delicious writing interspersed. My library book group ended up with this title because we wanted something by her, and this was the only one in stock at our distributor's warehouse. It's not bad, it's just feels like a first book, which it is. I'll very happily go on reading her later works, and glad to have gotten this one out of the way.

[KC · Rating 4 out of 5]

Audiobook Review: Serve It Forth by M. F. K. Fisher

Fisher has a gift for making food an entry point into nearly everything worth thinking about. In Serve It Forth, she writes about eating, of course, but also history, aging, memory, pleasure, and the social rituals that surround a meal. Her prose is elegant without feeling precious, and her observations are often as delicious as the food she describes. I particularly loved “The Standing and the Waiting,” which captures her appreciation for the pleasures of good food and good company, and the curious ways our appetites change as we age. Her reflections on the tension between indulging in what we enjoy and recognizing the limitations of our time are especially lovely.

The historical commentary was another highlight. Fisher moves beyond recipes and culinary preferences to explore the customs, misconceptions, and cultural attitudes that have shaped how we eat. Even the history of the vomitorium, that persistent misconception about Roman dining, makes for fascinating reading. I enjoy books that leave me with something unexpected to look up or reconsider, and Fisher offers plenty of both. Her essays are less concerned with prescribing how one ought to eat than with examining what our eating habits reveal about us, although she certainly has opinions about the subject.

What makes the book so enjoyable is Fisher’s distinctive style. She can be witty, philosophical, nostalgic, and occasionally provocative, often within the same essay. There is a particular pleasure in reading someone who takes an ostensibly ordinary subject seriously without stripping it of its humor or sensuality. Food is nourishment, but it is also culture, memory, companionship, and one of the ways we make life worth living. Fisher understands all of this, and she writes about it with considerable charm.

The audiobook was a lovely way to experience the collection. The narration complements Fisher’s prose and makes the essays an engaging listen. This is the sort of book I could happily revisit, not because I need to memorize its arguments, but because spending time in Fisher’s company is a pleasure in itself. 4.5 stars.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ALC. This is my honest and voluntary review.

[Jordan Burnham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Delightful! I officially love and want to be MFK Fisher.

“Dining partners, regardless of gender, social standing, or the years they've lived, should be chosen for their ability to eat —and drink!— with the right mixture of abandon and restraint. They should enjoy food, and look upon it's preparation and it's degestation as one of the human arts. They should relish the accompanying drinks, whether they be ale from a bottle on a hillside or the ripe bouquet of Chamberlin 1919 in a great crystal globe on finest damask.
And above all, friends should possess the rare gift of sitting. They should be able, no, eager, to sit for hours —three, four, six— over a meal of soup and wine and cheese, as well as one of twenty fabulous courses.
Then, with good friends of such attributes, and good food on the board, and good wine in the pitcher, we may well ask, When shall we live if not now?”

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

MFK Fisher is celebrated as one of the greatest writers about food. As someone that likes good books and good food. This collection of observations about food hit the sweet spot for me. Fisher is a superb stylist who writes brilliantly and tartly about food and the consumers of food human beings.
Fisher clearly believed that life should be celebrated and that good food and good conversation were civilizing and splendid. I look forward to reading more of her work.
Note I also read Fisher’s Consider the Oyster a very brief tribute to oysters and the people who eat them I love oysters and order them frequently. My preference is raw oysters but Fisher has me ready to order up some oyster stew at the grand central oyster bar in NYC when the time comes.
This short read may be too precise and have too many recipes for most readers.

[Ana · Rating 3 out of 5]

To be honest, I'm not sure if this rating is quite fair, but my reading experience really was quite mediocre.

The writing itself is lovely, but this book is just jam-packed with historic inaccuracies. Maybe some of the inaccuracies are historic facts that were revealed after Fisher's time. But in general, I felt like this book was filled with a lot of pop culture history, such as "the Romans had special rooms they puked into between courses," that aren't really grounded in fact.

Overall, this book had some nice anecdotes surrounded by a lot of inaccurate nonsense. Yes, that feels sacrilegious to say, when Fisher is one of the preeminent food authors and I have so much respect for her. But I was really disappointed by how many inaccuracies this book contained.

[Samantha · Rating 4.5 out of 5]

M.F.K. Fisher’s food knowledge never ceases to impress, but it’s her writing that really sets her work apart.

This book is an essay collection often focused on the history of food, ranging all the way back to pre-Antiquity and moving forward in time to Fisher’s own era.

She’s excellent at connecting her contemporary observations about food with its history, and perhaps more importantly, at connecting humans with their historical relationships with food.

The earliest time periods discussed are the most interesting, but all are worth a read, and I enjoyed that the book has both a broader point to make about our relationship to and enjoyment of food and a lot of smaller ones that allow the reader to pick up loads of fun tidbits about food and its history.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Delightful overall. Some pieces hit better than others but Fisher's voice is fantastic, winking, wry, sardonic and always just a bit holier-than-thou. My favorites were her burlesque portraits of the gastronomic excesses of the ancient Chinese or Romans, etc. Some of the character studies were great as well; particularly the final one, about a bawdy hard drinking french butcher. Taken together, the essays and stories form a a sort of manifesto for a way of appreciating gastronomy that involves much more than just the contents of one's plate.

[Aaron · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fantastic book who anyone who loves and appreciates food.

It's witty, conversational tone is peculiarly suited to the audiobook format, making for delightful listening. The topics covered are by turns expansive and minutely detailed, a wonderful and varied collection. Fisher writes in such an intelligent, wrly humorous way that ever sentence is a joy. The author's love for and understanding of the subject matter just drips from every word yet never does it feel stuffy or inaccessible.

This is a fantastic introduction to M.F.K. Fisher.

[Yousseif Abdellatif · Rating 3 out of 5]

The vibe was completely off in the first act of Serve It Forth, like a friend telling a story and getting every detail wrong. Hang on, though. Once M.F.K. Fisher drops the main character into an abandoned roller rink with a stranger and a stolen briefcase, the whole thing gets sharp and weird in the best way. The scene where the lights flicker on and the disco ball starts spinning on its own is a total mood shift. The opening is clumsy and over-explained. For readers who like a rocky start with a strong payoff. Pass if you give up on books easily.

[Nina Reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

Serve It Forth feels like a conversation with an older relative who has experienced the world - at least that’s how I feel when I read MFK Fisher.

The writing is exceptional, clever, and deliberate.

Reading MFF Fisher always leaves me feeling more calm, grounded, and slow. I can feel Fisher’s words lowering my blood pressure.

This book is for readers who like slow mornings - a cup of coffee in bed with the drapes open or something to enjoy with breakfast.

[Vanessa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mary Frances is a delight! She writes not just about food but about people, intertwining stories from history with her own dinner conversations from the many tables she has dined at around the world. Her descriptions of French cuisine are especially delightful, and her unabashed, contagious *hunger* - for food, exploration, and human connection - is at the core of her charm.

[Kim Shively · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fisher is a charming writer with a brilliant way of describing her experiences, especially around food. Of course, while you read these little essays, you want to go out and try all kinds of new foods and have new food experiences. Most of us can't afford to do this, but the next best thing is reading M. F. K. Fisher's prose.

[Daphne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing writing, full stop. Come for the food topic, stay for the incredible, stylish, hilarious writing. My favorite essay was about the potato. I found all of it fascinating, every single essay. I have an omnibus of 5 of her books and am working my way through all of them. Highly recommend, even if you don't love food writing!

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

A succinct yet elaborate history of gastronomy told in anecdotal stories that make you feel as if she lived through all of it. Florally descriptive without being gushy, she reminded me of a posh Colette, and I wouldn't be surprised if she is somewhere in Eve Babitz' genealogy.