Fasting And Feasting: The Life Of Visionary Food Writer Patience Gray
by Adam Federman /
2017 / English / EPUB
7 MB Download
For more than thirty years, Patience Gray―author of the
celebrated cookbook
For more than thirty years, Patience Gray―author of the
celebrated cookbookHoney from a Weed
Honey from a Weed―lived in a remote
area of Puglia in southernmost Italy. She lived without
electricity, modern plumbing, or a telephone, grew much of her
own food, and gathered and ate wild plants alongside her
neighbors in this economically impoverished region. She was fond
of saying that she wrote only for herself and her friends, yet
her growing reputation brought a steady stream of international
visitors to her door. This simple and isolated life she chose for
herself may help explain her relative obscurity when compared to
the other great food writers of her time: M. F. K. Fisher,
Elizabeth David, and Julia Child.
―lived in a remote
area of Puglia in southernmost Italy. She lived without
electricity, modern plumbing, or a telephone, grew much of her
own food, and gathered and ate wild plants alongside her
neighbors in this economically impoverished region. She was fond
of saying that she wrote only for herself and her friends, yet
her growing reputation brought a steady stream of international
visitors to her door. This simple and isolated life she chose for
herself may help explain her relative obscurity when compared to
the other great food writers of her time: M. F. K. Fisher,
Elizabeth David, and Julia Child.
So it is not surprising that when Gray died in 2005, the BBC
described her as an “almost forgotten culinary star.” Yet her
influence, particularly among chefs and other food writers, has
had a lasting and profound effect on the way we view and
celebrate good food and regional cuisines. Gray’s prescience was
unrivaled: She wrote about what today we would call the Slow Food
movement―from foraging to eating locally―long before it became
part of the cultural mainstream. Imagine if Michael Pollan or
Barbara Kingsolver had spent several decades living among
Italian, Greek, and Catalan peasants, recording their recipes and
the significance of food and food gathering to their way of life.
So it is not surprising that when Gray died in 2005, the BBC
described her as an “almost forgotten culinary star.” Yet her
influence, particularly among chefs and other food writers, has
had a lasting and profound effect on the way we view and
celebrate good food and regional cuisines. Gray’s prescience was
unrivaled: She wrote about what today we would call the Slow Food
movement―from foraging to eating locally―long before it became
part of the cultural mainstream. Imagine if Michael Pollan or
Barbara Kingsolver had spent several decades living among
Italian, Greek, and Catalan peasants, recording their recipes and
the significance of food and food gathering to their way of life.
In
InFasting and Feasting,
Fasting and Feasting, biographer Adam Federman tells
the remarkable―and until now untold―life story of Patience Gray:
from her privileged and intellectual upbringing in England, to
her trials as a single mother during World War II, to her career
working as a designer, editor, translator, and author, and
describing her travels and culinary adventures in later years. A
fascinating and spirited woman, Patience Gray was very much a
part of her times but very clearly ahead of them.
biographer Adam Federman tells
the remarkable―and until now untold―life story of Patience Gray:
from her privileged and intellectual upbringing in England, to
her trials as a single mother during World War II, to her career
working as a designer, editor, translator, and author, and
describing her travels and culinary adventures in later years. A
fascinating and spirited woman, Patience Gray was very much a
part of her times but very clearly ahead of them.