September 2007: The Gastronomical Me (Fisher)

Post date: Jan 07, 2010 9:7:23 PM

Of the group that gathered at Aimee's on September 5 to discuss M.F.K. Fisher's book The Gastronomical Me, only I had read any other Fisher before. I think it gave me a different perspective from others, most of whom seemed to feel that they weren't getting enough information from the author about her life and times, only ruminations on food. Since I'd read other Fisher, I knew better what to expect, and the few autobiographical details that she did reveal were more interesting to me as well, most likely. Unsurprisingly, it also helped if you were interested in cooking.

Here are some details I got from Wikipedia, to fill in some of the blanks:

Fisher was born Mary Frances Kennedy in Albion, Michigan. While studying at the University of California in 1929, Fisher met her first husband, Alfred Young Fisher. The couple spent the first formative years of their marriage in Europe, primarily at the University of Dijon in France. In 1932, the couple returned from France to a country ravaged by the Great Depression.

During the Fishers' years in California, they formed a friendship with Dillwyn "Timmy" Parrish and his wife, Gigi. Later, in 1938, Fisher was to leave Alfred for Timmy, referred to as "Chexbres" in many of her books, named after the small Swiss village on Lake Geneva close to where they had lived. The second marriage, while passionate, was short. Only a year into the marriage, Parrish lost his leg due to a circulatory disease, and in 1941 took his own life. She was involved in a number of other turbulent romantic relationships with men and women.

Fisher later bore two daughters. Anne, whose father Fisher refused to name, was born in 1943. Kennedy was born during Fisher's short-lived marriage to Donald Friede, which lasted from 1945 to 1951.

After Parrish's death, Fisher considered herself a "ghost" of a person, but went on to live a long and productive life, dying in California in 1992 at the age of 83. She had long suffered from Parkinson's disease and arthritis, but lived the last twenty years of her life in "Last House," a house built for her in one of California's vineyards.

--Sherrill