M. F. K. Fisher

Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher Parrish Friede (July 3, 1908 – June 22, 1992), writing as M.F.K. Fisher, was an American food writer. She was a founder of the Napa Valley Wine Library. Over her lifetime she wrote 27 books, including a translation of The Physiology of Taste by Brillat-Savarin. Fisher believed that eating well was just one of the "arts of life" and explored this in her writing. W. H. Auden once remarked, "I do not know of anyone in the United States who writes better prose." In 1991 the New York Times editorial board went so far as to say, "Calling M.F.K. Fisher, who has just been elected to the American Academy and National Institute of Arts and Letters, a food writer is a lot like calling Mozart a tunesmith." Early life Fisher was born Mary Frances Kennedy on July 3, 1908, at 202 Irwin Avenue, Albion, Michigan. She told Albion City Historian Frank Passic: Rex was a co-owner (with his brother Walter) and editor of the Albion Evening Recorder newspaper. In 1911, Rex sold his interest in the paper to his brother, and moved the family to the West Coast, where he hoped to buy a fruit or citrus orchard. The family spent some time in Washington with relatives, and then traveled down the coast to Ventura, California, where Rex nearly purchased an orange grove, but backed out after discovering soil problems. He next purchased and briefly owned the Oxnard Courier in Oxnard, California. From there he traveled to San Diego and worked for a local newspaper. In 1912 he purchased a controlling interest in the Whittier News and moved the family to Whittier, California. Rex initially purchased a house at 115 Painter Avenue. In 1919, he purchased a large white house outside the city limits on South Painter Avenue. The house sat on thirteen acres, with an orange grove; it was referred to by the family as "The Ranch." Although Whittier was primarily a Quaker community at that time, Mary Frances was brought up within the Episcopal Church.