An Extravagant Hunger: The Passionate Years of M.F.K. Fisher

a girl—and then a woman—ruled by hungers large and small.

“We write to taste life twice, in the moment, and in retrospection.” —ANAÏS NIN

MARY FRANCES COULD have become a picky eater under her grandmother’s influence. Instead, in rebellion, she began to value pleasure over repression; she would seek out abundance in food, and in life, again and again.

Still, Mary Frances wrote her mother that they were “bounding with vim and vigor” and that she “loved Al more every minute.” It was the first of many sweeping statements Mary Frances would pen to mask the hurts Al would heap on her over the coming years. Her optimism was a healing tactic, and she hoped it would convince her family (and herself) tha