OP: Mrs. Rasmussen's Book of One-Arm Cookery

Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1946. Hardcover. Very Good Minus.

Novelist Mary Lasswell (1905–1994) began writing while her husband served in the Navy during World War II. Her first novel, 1942’s Suds in Your Eye, is the humorous story of a trio of beer-loving, carousing older women—Mrs. Feely, Miss Tinkham, and Mrs. Rasmussen—overcoming the hardships of being widowed or single during the war. The book was such a success that five additional novels followed, featuring the same characters—and several packs of beer—throughout. 

Mrs. Rasmussen’s Book of One-Arm Cookery (1946) appeared between the publication of the second and third novel in the voice of Rasmussen—who was the resourceful cook among the three, using stale bread, meat scraps, and whatever vegetables were available to create delicious meals all while joking, drinking, and singing. Rasmussen states in her introduction that her recipes were compiled for the men serving in the armed forces who wrote asking for them. 

Recipe categories include: Main Dishes: Food That Sticks to Your Ribs, Relishes and Extras: Go Good with the Beer, Vegetables: None That Could Be Avoided, and Desserts: Something for Your Cavities. Most of the dishes would be standard across middle America at the time (chicken fried steak, meat loaf, stuffed cabbage). And, of course, all the recipes are cookable (more or less) with one arm, as the other ought to be holding a beer. Written with humor and a love of good home cooking, this is a great addition to the collection of literary enthusiasts and cookbook fans alike.

Our copy is in Very Good Minus condition with foxing to the book block and a soiled, clipped, and worn jacket. The jacket and endpapers are excellently illustrated by George Price, once a cartoonist for The New Yorker, who also did the original drawings for Suds…