All 5 books included are great treats for food lovers who are willing to allow other opinions to blossom. In one of the last sections of the very last book I was greatly amused to learn the salt free steak had been soaked in soy sauce, but I expect it was as delicious as stated. I learned much about oysters and about the region of Burgundy and the Lake Leman area of Switzerland and was filled with longing to have been there when. Best read when lightly hungry with bread and cheese - good bread and cheese - at hand and a glass of light wine would be welcome. ( )

Five books collected in one volume. Strange and wonderful; the genesis of what we think of as food writing today. Intensely personal without being embarrassing; focused and precise; opinionated; generous; enlightening.

Why the hell didn't I read this 20 years ago? ( )

This is an interim review, since I didn't finish it before it was due at the library (and I wasn't able to renew it). This very large (749 pages) volume combines five of Fisher's popular cooking titles (Serve It Forth, Consider the Oyster, How To Cook a Wolf, The Gastronomical Me, and An Alphabet for Gourmets) - 50 years of food essays. I almost gave up on it until I got to "The Gastronomical Me" which was much more interesting - entertaining, autobiographical, humorous, and worth reading. So I'll be checking it out again and will update this review. ( )

This is one of my favorite books. It contains several of MFK Fisher's classic (and IMO, best) books about food, from How to Cook a Wolf to An Alphabet for Gourmets. Even now, 25 years after discovering her, I can still dip into any one of these books and get lost for a while in MFK Fisher's delightful world of food and travel and occasionally, making do. Just one word of advice: Don't make the War Cake from How to Cook a Wolf. Seriously. ( )

This is a fabulous compendium of several separate books by the essayist M.F.K. Fisher. There is Serve It Forth, her first collection of essays, The Gastronomical Me, a touching autobiography, How To Cook a Wolf, essays on living through post-War food rationing, and An Alphabet For Gourmets, another collection of essays. Fisher's prose is stellar and to read her is to be welcomed into the spacious mind and heart of an old friend. ( )