How to Cook a Wolf Redux

October 16, 3:05 AMFood ExaminerEric Burkett

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Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher (1908-1992)

With the world’s economy seemingly collapsing around us, I’ve been thinking of M.F.K. Fisher’s book “How to Cook a Wolf” published during the food shortages and rationing of World War II. With the costs of everyday life firing skyward—groceries and fuel most notably—self-imposed rationing and shortages are becoming more and more of a reality for many 66 years later.

Just a couple days ago, National Public Radio’s Morning Edition ran a story about a woman who expects to save between 5 and 6,000 dollars this year with her manic habit of extreme coupon clipping. Coupons are great, but who needs that much CheezWiz or that many bags of frozen French fries? In "How to Cook a Wolf" Fisher sought to share not only tips on how to survive rationing, but how to do so with one’s dignity and taste intact.

Wise men forever have known that a nation lives on what its body assimilates, as well as on what its mind acquires as knowledge. Now, when the hideous necessity of the war machine takes steel and cotton and humanity, our own private personal secret mechanism must be stronger, for selfish comfort as well as for the good of the ideals we believe we believe in.

We are better than the circumstances into which we are steadily sinking, and for those of us who are suffering particular hardship, it may be necessary to let go of luxuries to which we’d grown attached. But we needn’t give up our need for good things, and that means good food. Cook simply – simpler, if need be – and take pleasure in the most basic and important of life’s offerings. Cook as much for yourself as for the ones you love.