Favorite Quote: M. F. K. Fisher

In the comments for Never Waste a Flavor: Homemade Stock, simplesavvy raises the question of whether to add canned-vegetable juice to stock. This reminded me of a chapter in M. F. K. Fisher’s How to Cook a Wolf. Written during World War II, this great book extols the virtues of using every last scrap of food in your kitchen, from rock-hard bread to, yes, canned-vegetable juices (she suggests saving them up and mixing them with tomato and lemon juice for a cocktail). At one point Fisher speculates that some of her suggestions might seem odd to people accustomed to plenty, but concludes that

“ . . . there is a basic thoughtfulness, a searching for the kernel in the nut, the bite in honest bread, the slow savor in a baked wished-for apple. It is this thoughtfulness that we must hold to, in peace or war, if we may continue to eat to live.” 

Almost seventy years later, she’s still right.