SOURCE: "Cooking for Sauce," The New York Times Book Review, September 19, 1954, p. 12.

Below, Stout praises The Art of Eating, commenting on the skill and occasional eccentricity of Fisher's writing.

Someone has said of Casanova's Memoirs that it is a wonderful book about life with the accent on love and sex. M. F. K. Fisher's The Art of Eating is a wonderful book about life with the accent on food and cooking. Casanova could certainly love, but his book is wonderful because he could write; and Mrs. Fisher can certainly cook, but her book is wonderful because she too can write. It is an omnibus volume containing her Serve It Forth, Consider the Oyster, How to Cook a Wolf, The Gastronomical Me and Alphabet for Gourmets.

It has scores of recipes, from gentle and creamy scrambled eggs to Riz à l'Impératrice and pheasant with sauerkraut. It has hundreds of...