How to Cook a Wolf

Lore & Background

How to Cook a Wolf was written after the attack on Pearl Harbor, when Fisher returned to California from war-torn Europe and wrote a guide to blackout curtains and crisis cooking for her father's newspaper, the Whittier News. The columns evolved into a book written in about a month, and publisher Duell, Sloan and Pearce rushed it into print due to wartime topicality. A revised 'Cold War edition' was published in 1951, with marginal notes, footnotes, and additional recipes, quietly speaking out against postwar over-indulgences and including new material on feeding children.

The book is dedicated to Fisher's friend Lawrence Bachmann, who reportedly came up with the title. The 'wolf' refers to the one at the door, the allegorical big bad wolf of folk tales, specifically the predator in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's poem 'The Wolf at the Door.' The solution, as per the brick-house little pig from the Grimms' folktale, is to 'outsmart him and have him for dinner.' The book contains 73 recipes, but a New York Times reviewer noted its strengths were in 'unorthodox, specific and pointed suggestions about cooking various types of food.' Fisher later said, 'The book has some terrible recipes...We were just so grateful to get hold of anything.'

Reader's Guide

How to Cook a Wolf has been described as 'almost a bible for modern commune dwellers, homesteaders, and other devotees of the simple life' during the back-to-the-land movement of the 1970s, frequently referenced in Mother Earth News. Both the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the COVID-19 pandemic led to a resurgence of interest. A Vox writer noted during the coronavirus crisis that the book 'has outlived its function as a practical how-to guide.' Fisher's biographer Joan Reardon wrote that the overarching theme was 'the will to survive, whether in wartime or in battle with old age or in a crise de nerfs.' A pandemic-era writer argued the essays are 'an argument for living the best life that you can when everything around you goes to shit.' The book was anthologized in full in The Art of Eating (1954) and remains in print. In 2016, it was number 37 on the Guardian's list of 100 best nonfiction books. Tamar Adler's An Everlasting Meal was characterized as a riff on How to Cook a Wolf, with Adler explicitly crediting Fisher as her inspiration.

Did You Know?

• The book was written in about a month and rushed into print by Duell, Sloan and Pearce because of its wartime topicality.
• A revised 'Cold War edition' was published in 1951, with marginal notes, footnotes, and additional recipes.
• The title was reportedly suggested by Fisher's friend Lawrence Bachmann.
• In 1956, Fisher appeared in a five-minute color short film produced by the Wine Advisory Board of San Francisco called 'How to Cook a Wolf Quickly'.