The pigeon is tender and rich, and everyone eats it with their hands, the better to pull the bones apart. Everyone, that is, save for Lucy Pendleton, who disapproves of what she regards as yet another sign of her companions’ sybaritic decadence. She hates the way her friends eat and drink, their lack of moderation, their pretension. Why, she wonders, can’t they feast on good American food, on roast beef with potatoes and gravy? Getting up from the table, she goes into the kitchen, bearing her grudge, if not an empty plate. And then it happens. Something inside gives way: “There was a bowl of mayonnaise with a glass plate set over it. She tiptoed to the bread box, took out a handful of rather leathery toast sticks, and carried them to the cupboard where she stood ravenously dipping them into the thick, rich, yellow sauce and eating them in big untidy bites.”
When I read this scene, which comes from The Theoretical Foot, a “lost” novel by the food writer, MFK Fisher, I couldn’t help but grin. I thought straight away of the bit in With Bold Knife and Fork in which she describes her devout love of mayonnaise, a devotion born of childhood deprivation: “My maternal grandmother, whose Victorian neuroses dictated our family table tastes until I was about 12, found salads generally suspect but would tolerate the occasional serving of some watery lettuce in a dish beside each plate. On it would be a dab or lump or blob, depending on the current cook, of what was quietly referred to as Boiled Dressing.” What did this dressing, a concoction of cider vinegar, flour and salt, taste like? One of the great joys of Fisher’s writing is her flamboyant way with disgust. “It seemed dreadful stuff,” she goes on. “Enough to harm one’s soul.”
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