A Slice of Escapism: M.F.K. Fisher’s Provence

For a while, years ago, France’s Provence became a mecca for food writers and cooks. The stunning light, so like a winter’s morning in Florida, elevated the storied landscape to the magical. The dry air whispered possibilities as the soil sprouted lavender as far as the eye could see.

The culinary luminaries flocked to the sun and the sea.

Julia Child. Simone Beck. Richard Olney. James Beard. Judith Jones.

But first came M.F.K. Fisher.

All spent months, even years, in Provence, as firmly planted as ageless, gnarled olive trees.

Luke Barr’s Provence: 1970 outlines the interactions of all these food world luminaries as they ate together, laughed together. But it took photojournalist Aileen Ah-Tye to explain the pull of Provence, especially Ms. Fisher’s Provence, via soul-shifting photographs.

The result – M.F.K. Fisher’s Provence (2015) – combines Ms. Ah-Tye’s Provençal imagery with Ms. Fisher’s brilliant observations, rendered in vivid, detailed prose. Gleaned from Ms. Fisher’s Two Towns in Provence, this book transports the reader to places Ms. Fisher and her cohorts saw as they relished the region’s cuisine.

Aileen Ah-Tye’s photographs evoke a sense of peace and tranquility sorely lacking in today’s world. Perusing the pages of M.F.K. Fisher’s Provence brings a sense of timelessness, and why not? Aix-en-Provence is old, ancient indeed.

So here is the town, founded more than two thousand years ago by the brash Roman invaders, on much older ruins which still stick up their stones and artifacts. … Countless poems have been written too, in wine rather than acid, and countless pictures have been painted, about the healing waters [of the Roman spa] and the ever-flowing healing fountains of the place. They will continue as long as does man …That is why Aix is what it is. ~ M.F.K. Fisher

A feeling of belonging permeates Ms. Fisher’s prose accompanying the photographs.

All the windows of the simple pleasant house were wide open, a wonderful feeling for after the winter in a hotel, and the walls were white plaster and the good furniture was dark with age and shining with wax, and the floors were of red square tiles. ~ M.F.K. Fisher

M.F.K. Fisher’s Provence, like an index finger, beckons the reader to turn the slick, glossy pages one after the other, but slowly, allowing for a slowness of reading, a pondering of truths and insights and memories. A reminder of what peace can be, even if only in fleeting snippets and flutters.

But, at the book’s end, in Marseille, Ms. Fisher speaks of thoughts many of us have as events unfold day after day, each news flash worse than the last.

I wonder if I’ll ever be there, once more, to look down on the Old Port, and drain the shell of every oyster on my plate, then perhaps eat a piece of orange tart. I wonder if I want to. It is tiring, sometimes, to play the phoenix … even in that salt-sweet air.

Artemis, help me! ~ M.F.K. Fisher