I don’t often try to find books published in 1943, but when I do, it’s for a good reason. Last summer I was listening to an audiobook, When Books When To War: The Stories that Helped Us Win World War II by Molly Guptill Manning that mentioned the servicemen particularly loving Chicken Every Sunday: My Life with Mother’s Boarders by Rosemary Taylor. The description evoked the feelings I get when I talk here about books about the kitchen and food so I started searching for a copy. My indie bookstore for the win, they were able to secure a copy for me to purchase at a fair price of $20. I didn’t know what kind of shape it would be in if it was published in 1943, but as she mentioned on the phone, it appeared to be in decent condition- so I said yes.

I picked it up months ago and was waiting for the right time to read it and this past weekend’s readathon seemed like that time. In the wee hours of the morning as the first light appeared, I was smelling the smells of Mother’s kitchen and pulsing with the energy of a houseful of boarders. This memoir is dedicated to Taylor’s mother who spent her life catering to others in her home as a rough and tumble entrepreneur who took care of people around the table and in the home. There’s an instantaneous connection to how Taylor describes her mom that I felt like she was sitting next to me. And each story about a boarder was essentially a vignette detailing an experience from the early 1900s  and how they came to revolve around Mother’s world. A good meal. A kind ear. And making sure her husband didn’t get the rent from anybody- she kept him in line too.

Mother was, and is, an utterly divine cook. It isn’t that I’m her daughter. It isn’t just a nostalgic backward look at my childhood. But, just as there are artists who paint, sing, sculpt, so there are also artists who cook. There are Carusos, Pavlovas, and Michaelangelos. There is also Mother over the cookstove. And like any artist she needed a public. She had it in the boarders. The curtain went up three times a day, and she took her applause in the chorus of appreciation and also in the visible poundage that went on the eaters.

The book was deceptively short. The old thick paper with that old book smell make it seem like there were more pages than there were but I was also drawn in to a mood all its own. It was the chaos of big families, it was how it was done in the old days, it was the pioneering West too.

Chicken Every Sunday is a diamond in the rough; where one thing led to another and now I’m holding on to that diamond that hit me in way that books should. Maybe it was sleep deprivation or maybe it’s my unabiding love for the magic of kitchens, but either way I’m better for having this book on my shelf. It’s a feeling. It’s stroking the front cover and giving it some googly eyes.

Are there super old books that might not necessarily be the “classics” that you adore for one reason or another?