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Perifrasis. Rev. Lit. Teor. Crit. | eISSN 2145-9045 | ISSN 2145-8987

“[To Live] Most Agreeably in a World Full of an Increasing Number of Disagreeable Surprises”: Revisiting How to Cook a Wolf by M. F. K. Fisher in 2020 During Quarantine

No. 29 (2023-05-05)
  • Julieta Flores Jurado
    Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
https://doi.org/10.25025/perifrasis202314.29.05

Abstract

M. F. K. Fisher’s food memoirs have been interpreted as works that possess literary status. Fisher’s 1942 book How to Cook a Wolf, a collection of essays about food rationing during World War II, became popular again during the 2020 lockdown because it provided a timely reflection on the domestic kitchen as a shelter in uncertain times. This
article includes an overview of food writing as a genre and considers the relevance of Fisher’s book through the concepts of healthism and hypervigilant subject, which are
involved in contemporary discourses on eating and the human body. My analysis aims to demonstrate that How to Cook a Wolf invites its readers to reconcile with their appetite and their corporeality and to chase the new perils away with the delight and soothing ability to eat amid periods of crisis.

Keywords: M.F.K. Fisher, food studies, gastronomy, twentieth century, World War II, Covid-19 Pandemic, American literature

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