Carolyn J. Rose
I wasn’t around when Herbert Hoover’s campaign called for “a chicken for every pot.” I can’t remember when I heard the slogan in a history class, a slogan that had been changed to “a chicken in every pot.” What I do recall is the moment I realized there are some pots that should never, in my firm opinion,contain a chicken.
When I joined Volunteers in Service to
Cold water provided a little from-the-inside-out relief.
Cold beer helped more. And one particular brand of beer (a brand I won’t name)
was on sale that summer. A quart was around a quarter. But those quarts were
cheap because they weren’t chilled. Our refrigerators were small and, by
today’s standards, didn’t get the job done quickly.
So, the four or five of us who regularly met to cobble
together an evening meal developed a strategy. No matter how many bottles of
beer we bought, we left at least one—and ideally two—in the refrigerator.
Those, like sourdough starter, slaked our thirst at the next gathering. Of the warm
bottles purchased for that gathering, two went into the tiny freezer
compartment to chill. The rest were stashed in the coldest part of the
refrigerator. If they weren’t chilled to perfection—or even close—by the time
we opened them, it seldom seemed to matter. It was the first beer that
absolutely had to be cold.
Whole chickens were also extremely cheap that summer, so we
had chicken at every group meal. No one even dreamed of turning on the oven,
especially not in the second-floor apartment of two male volunteers. Chicken
was chopped up and grilled on a tiny Hibachi. When they discovered they were
out of charcoal, it was fried. Housekeeping was never my strong suit and it really
wasn’t the strong suit of those two guys. When the frying pan accumulated so
much caked-on grease we couldn’t stand to look at it, and when no guests
stepped up to do the scrubbing, the chicken went into a pot of water and was
boiled, made into soup, or shredded for sandwiches. When that pot developed a
crusty ring, the guys dug out a second pot. The second pot soon reached the
point where the word “disgusting” didn’t begin to describe it. The first pot
and the frying pan still languished, unscrubbed, on the counter.
Remaining hopeful for a burst of hygiene, I set out for
their apartment a few days later carrying several bottles of beer. As I climbed
the stairs, I smelled chicken, onion, and another aroma. It was familiar. I
knew I smelled it often. But I couldn’t place it.
I opened the door, set my beer offering on the kitchen
table, and turned to the stove. There, bubbling away, was a pot. A dented metal
coffeepot. A coffeepot without the basket for ground coffee or the perk tube. A
coffeepot with a chicken crammed inside.
Well, most of the chicken was crammed in. The legs, pale and
pimpled, stuck out.
I gagged. My appetite disappeared. Leaving the beer behind,
I fled.
To this day, whenever I see chicken, in any form, I get a
sharp mental picture of that chicken and that pot. After more than 50 years, I
no longer gag. I chuckle. Then I insert the word “almost” into the campaign
slogan.
