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As They Were

Autobiographical Essays

Author M.F.K. Fisher
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Paperback
$21.00 US
Knopf | Vintage
On sale May 12, 1983 | 272 Pages | 9780394713489
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"Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher is a national treasure. For nearly 50 years she has been writing rare, fine prose about so many things that she is nearly impossible to define. . . . In As They Were she has collected a number of essays—she calls them ‘reports’—into an informal autobiography that wanders from Whittier, California, to the south of France.” —Newsweek

“She deserves the widest possible audience. . . . The restaurants, hotels and markets she visits are aswarm with people and things, all of which she describes in fine detail, making the reader taste and hear and smell and see as few other writers can.. . . .Wherever she is, wherever she goes, she is grand company.” —Chicago Sun-Times

“A breath of poetry wraps us as she relives for us a lifetime. . . . She is the attentive spectator of her own life as well as its narrator.” —Philadelphia Inquirer

“To my mind, As They Were contains some of the best writing M.F.K. Fisher has ever done.” —James Beard, Boston Globe

“In a properly run culture, Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher would be recognized as one of the greatest writers this country has produced in this century. . . . ” —The New York Times Book Review

“Here are the voluptuous meals recalled by a woman who savored not only the food and wine but every detail of setting and nuance of conversation. Here, too, are meditations on travel by freighter. . . . And here are the vivid evocations of places.” —San Francisco Chronicle

Prejudice, Hate, and the First World War
Palaces, Etcetera
Young Hunger
I Was Really Very Hungry
Three Swiss Inns
Pacific Village
The Flame and the Ash Thereof
The First Cafe
Two Kitchens in Provence
Wartwort
A Misson Accomplished
A Common Danger
About Looking Alone at a Place: Provence
At Sea
I. The Captain's Dinner, M.S. Feltre
II. Dutch Freighter, M.S. Diemerdyk
III. Announcement from Israfel, M.S. Pluto
The Wind-Chill Factor:  A Problem of Mind and Matter
The Changeover
Gare de Lyon
Nowhere but Here

M. F. K. Fisher was one of the great food writers of the twentieth century. Born in 1908 in Albion, Michigan, she grew up in Whittier, California, and was educated at Illinois College, Occidental College, UCLA, and the University of Dijon in France. Fisher travelled to and lived in Europe throughout her adult life. The author of numerous books, magazine articles, novels, and a translation of Brillat-Savarin’s The Physiology of Taste, she is best remembered for her gastronomical works and the autobiographical nature of her writings about people, places, and food. Fisher died in 1992. View titles by M.F.K. Fisher

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"Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher is a national treasure. For nearly 50 years she has been writing rare, fine prose about so many things that she is nearly impossible to define. . . . In As They Were she has collected a number of essays—she calls them ‘reports’—into an informal autobiography that wanders from Whittier, California, to the south of France.” —Newsweek

“She deserves the widest possible audience. . . . The restaurants, hotels and markets she visits are aswarm with people and things, all of which she describes in fine detail, making the reader taste and hear and smell and see as few other writers can.. . . .Wherever she is, wherever she goes, she is grand company.” —Chicago Sun-Times

“A breath of poetry wraps us as she relives for us a lifetime. . . . She is the attentive spectator of her own life as well as its narrator.” —Philadelphia Inquirer

“To my mind, As They Were contains some of the best writing M.F.K. Fisher has ever done.” —James Beard, Boston Globe

“In a properly run culture, Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher would be recognized as one of the greatest writers this country has produced in this century. . . . ” —The New York Times Book Review

“Here are the voluptuous meals recalled by a woman who savored not only the food and wine but every detail of setting and nuance of conversation. Here, too, are meditations on travel by freighter. . . . And here are the vivid evocations of places.” —San Francisco Chronicle

Table of Contents

Prejudice, Hate, and the First World War
Palaces, Etcetera
Young Hunger
I Was Really Very Hungry
Three Swiss Inns
Pacific Village
The Flame and the Ash Thereof
The First Cafe
Two Kitchens in Provence
Wartwort
A Misson Accomplished
A Common Danger
About Looking Alone at a Place: Provence
At Sea
I. The Captain's Dinner, M.S. Feltre
II. Dutch Freighter, M.S. Diemerdyk
III. Announcement from Israfel, M.S. Pluto
The Wind-Chill Factor:  A Problem of Mind and Matter
The Changeover
Gare de Lyon
Nowhere but Here

Author

M. F. K. Fisher was one of the great food writers of the twentieth century. Born in 1908 in Albion, Michigan, she grew up in Whittier, California, and was educated at Illinois College, Occidental College, UCLA, and the University of Dijon in France. Fisher travelled to and lived in Europe throughout her adult life. The author of numerous books, magazine articles, novels, and a translation of Brillat-Savarin’s The Physiology of Taste, she is best remembered for her gastronomical works and the autobiographical nature of her writings about people, places, and food. Fisher died in 1992. View titles by M.F.K. Fisher

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