M.F.K. Fisher's "How To Cook A Wolf"

References to M.F.K. Fisher's "How to Cook A Wolf" are popping up everywhere, and for good reason.  "How To Cook A Wolf" was published in 1942, and is designed to help the harried housewife cope with food shortages, rationing coupons, and the crushing residual poverty left over from the Great Depression.  Many of its themes still ring true today - dare I use the clichéd phrase "In These Difficult Economic Times"?

"How To Cook A Wolf" is a fascinating read, because two thirds of it is relevant enough to have been written yesterday, while one third is so bizarrely antiquated that it has become the literary equivalent of a freak show.  Step right up!  Five dollars gets you a glimpse at a recipe for roasted pigeon!  (Ingredients: 1 pigeon, 1 lemon, 2 slices bacon, parsley, red wine, water, salt, pepper.)

The relevant two thirds was a bit of a surprise to me, since my past experience with cookbooks begins with "The Joy of Cooking" and ends with a copy of "The Silver Palate Cookbook," both of which were gifts.  Those books are collections of recipes, with perhaps a sentence or two opening each chapter.  "How To Cook A Wolf" is mostly prose, sprinkled here and there with recipes.  Is there a word that distinguishes one kind of cookbook from the other?  There ought to be.  No one would curl up with a copy of "The Joy of Cooking" on a rainy afternoon, but "How To Cook A Wolf" makes for excellent reading material.

The conceit of the book - that when the wolf is at the door, you should invite him in and eat him - is a little over-burdened.  It crops up frequently - the wolf thinks this, the wolf will do that, "I heard a sad sigh and then the diminishing click of his claws as he retreated down the hall," and so forth.  I could have done without any of this, not least because the metaphor doesn't stand up to close scrutiny.  (Just because you're enjoying yourself, that doesn't mean that your economic situation has improved.)

The chapters are organized loosely by ingredient type.  There is a chapter on soups, egg recipes, breads, (gulp) unusual meats like brain and tripe, and so forth.  The final chapter handles "impossibilities," recipes rich in ingredients like heavy cream and sardines, which were unattainable at the time.  

One down side of this conversational style of cookbook is that it can be frustrating to find something you're looking for.  The chapters are given coy titles, just to further complicate things.  In writing this review I went looking for a recipe for potato soup, which I thought was in the soups chapter (titled "How to Boil Water") but turned out to be in the potato chapter (titled "How to Pray for Peace").

"How To Cook A Wolf" is something of a novelty act these days, but most of its recipes are still relevant.  For example, I'll be trying out the aforementioned recipe for potato soup tonight.  Not being much of a cook, I appreciate that the recipes are simple, with a few basic ingredients, and not a lot of fuss or specialized equipment required.  I definitely look forward to reading the other three books in this collection!